Stella!

An attempt to discuss the art of translation and the history of Israeli theatre with my new penpal D., ended in her assersion that she prefers to discuss beer. "In the immortal words of Philip Sidney," she wrote, "'True, and yet true that I must Stella love.' Oh – what wouldn't I give for a nice cold stella right now…. (sigh)"

Dear sighing D., I love stella so, as well as other brews, that I'll be happy do discuss the subject lengthily here in public. I've already dedicated a post to beer, specifically the wonderful Palestinian Taybeh, and another post to a night spent beer tasting, but there's news in the field and much beer adventuring to recount. Time for a third entry.

First there's Nimrod's place. I don't even know Nimrod's last name. A lot of us just call him "The older Nimrod" since Flashky is the young Nimrod and quirky poet and journalist Nimrod Kamer is the in between Nimrod. The older Nimrod popped into the Prince scene a few months ago, friendly, pennyless and speaking dreamily of opening a bar over the ruins of Tel-Aviv's closing Lesbian joint, "The Minerva". I didn't believe it was going to happen until I was indoors, but he really did open a place, and that place has beer, serious beer.

St Bernardus on tap is impressive enough. Every keg of this lambic is a bustling metropolis of yeast, and at 8% alcohol content. a quart of it would set you straight for the night, but Nimrod is aiming higher. He's got Maredsous tripel on tap, which is even stronger, (10% alcohol content), and while maintaining belgian complexity, manages to be smooth and drinkable enough to be gulped. Though it's true that I must Stella love, Stella's homeland is responsible for much better fare.

Nimrod's place "Harozenet"("the Countess"), also has great food. He recruited the chef of now defunct "Pastis" on Rothschield, who put up a menu fit for the brews he serves. She went on and devised such combinations as a glass of Cava served with a slice of camambert and seasonal fruit that has nothing to do with the place's decor (it still has the Minerva's dungeony quality). This rings more like picnic food to me, which brings me to my next favorite beer source: the Tiv Taam convenienve store on Rotcshield.

Friends and neighboors, come and picnic at night in our summery city. I promise to buy whoever takes my invitation seriously a beer from the Tiv Taam on Rothschield. We'll take it out to the boulevard to sit and shoot the shit and look at the people and the dogs and kids. Looking for rarities? Worry not. They've got France's own 1664, Italy's pleasant Peroni and several good Bavarians. More beautifully still: they've got Strongbow cider, an uncommon treat around these parts and a happy drinking experience galore.

It may sound as though I'm raving hedonistic nonesense about my town's culinary execces, both here and in my previous "Well Fed" post, but in truth I'm writing a love letter to its summertime beauty. I've lived for years in cities where you couldn't bring a beer out to the street or could only get it at 2.50% strength, and in others where anything better than a PBR was difficult to obtain except in specialty boutiques. This town's grocery stores offer malty magic and its fringy bars make no beery conpromises. Bravo.

I will wrap this up, however, with a word of nostalgia to Boston and to "The Sunset Grill and Tap", a bar that used to serve 525 different kinds of beer, 112 of them on tap. Each week its selection would change and a new drink menu, looking like a newspaper, would be published. Though it's true that I must Tel-Aviv love, it still hasn't poured me Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier that tastes like smoked ham, nor New-Mexico chilly beer that's to spicy to drink. Another one I miss is Charles Quint. The best beer I ever drank. My friend Yanki and I were served this in Brussles out of a horse drawn barrel, the size of an SUV. Here in Tel-Aviv horses still mostly draw carts loaded with old electric appliances, but we shall continue to drink and dream, till our drinks come true.

My Horrible Job

My horrible job demanded that I compare different international makes of beer for an article.


Thankfully, I had help,


and time for a smoke break.

Intense beer tasting creates appetite. In fact, alcohol makes us oblivious to how unhungry we are after consuming tons of carbs. Beer munchies are a prime cause of beer bellies, but how can we fight them when Zika's wonderful Kebab house is down the street?


Stuffed and content we head home through sleepy, dirty jaffa, for one last sip of the winner: the rare and delightful Leff Triple.

The Finest in the Middle East

A few days a go I signed a book contract for my novel "Inuit Underpants". Now I'm reediting it for publication and this means that a bottle is sitting beside my computer. For a long time, while I was not writing "literature", that spot on the desk was taken up by other things: documents, business cards, little tins full of mints. Journalistic writing does not tolerate drinking, but literary writing goes quite well with it.

Since I ran out of whisky the other day, tonight I must have do with beer from the fridge, but it's good beer: the "golden" variant of Taybeh, produced east of Ramallah. This is indeed, as the label states, the region's finest. Brewmaster Nadim Khoury studied with the Sam Adams crew in Boston, so there's an American microbrew twist to the flavor: a few more hops than your Israeli lager, an underlying sweetness and texture that is neither Belgianly heavy nor overly light.

I drink to peace and justice, brothers and sisters. This brewery is a wonderful example of why we need both. Fonuded in the early nineties, it thrived during that decade. Then, as the second intefada began, found itself secluded from the Israeli buyers and bereft of local clientele. Taybeh town, where the beer is produced, is the only heavily Christian community in the northern West Bank, the rest are primerily Muslim, and even had they not been, deteriorating economic conditions in Palestine made commodities like microbrewed beers a laughable concept. Foreign markets responded weakly, and getting the goods accross the great rift to Jordan and beyond became intolerably difficult due to movement restrictions imposed by Israel.

Good beer is beauty. Good beer is poetry. A shortage of good beer is one damage done by political conflict that I find hard to forgive. Nearly three years ago I attended a party in Jerusalem, a launch for Hebrew underground magazine "Dor Gimmel". Taybeh beer was served there and consumed to the sound of absolutely rocking Jewish klezmer music. That combination is how I want to see my country.

Since that night, Taybeh beer became for me a symbol of my political aspirations. The very existance of fine brew (not to mention an annual Oktoberfest celebration) in this beat and punishing landscape is a somewhat surreal testament to the ultimate triumph of humanity. I'm drinking Palestinian pride tonight, infused with hops and hope. I'm drinking what this place could be like. It tastes great and gives me inspiration.