Malka Brewery – Fun Israeli Beer

After a group purchase from Golda Brewery organized for us by Gal, this time we tried Malka Brewery. Malka brewery makes 3 types of beer – Malka Bright, Malka Redhead and Malka Dark, each of which is unique and excellent. These beers are very easy going and work really great with the Israeli summer.

Malka Bright – This beer is of a type called “Saison” (Season in France),  a generic name given to pale ales with low alcohol percentage, a fact that makes this beer light and very refreshing. This beer was known as the beer farmers would take with them to the fields during the harvest.

Color – cloudy resin.

Nose – mainly citrus peel and freshness.

Flavor – citrus flavors accompanied by light fizzing that fills your mouth. Fun and bitter free beer.

This is the perfect answer for afternoon hours, when you get back from work and it’s to worm for wine and the thirst parches your throat.

Malka Redhead – This one is a PA which is one of my favorite beers. This style shows excellent balance between the bitter and all other flavors composing the beer.

Color – Beautiful sunset colors that matches this style of beer.

Flavor – Medium body with flavors reminding whole wheat bread.

Malka Dark – Stout beer. This style is known for its intense bitterness and full body. I usually don’t like Stout beers, however, this time I found a beer I can relate to and even enjoy.

Color – Coffee

Nose – Coffee

Flavor – Coffee, roasted wood and dark chocolate. The bitterness even though noticeable, is very pleasing.

Israeli breweries have proved once again that there is a future in this field, and that we have some brewers how know what they are doing, and produce some nice beer.

Golda – An Israeli Butique Brewery

After a huge wave swept the Israeli wine industry into a far better place, then it was a decades ago, it was now time for the beer industry to join along. Little by little interesting boutique breweries started appearing, producing some real nice beer. Even though I don’t consider myself as a beer expert I feel safe to say that some of the beer produced by the Israeli breweries does not fall from the level of beer produced by some world famous breweries, sometimes it shows an even more interesting character.

The Golda brewery I came to know about a year ago in the beer festival held in Kibbutz Maabarot (A small annual international beer festival held in Israel). Another acquaintance was about a month ago in NG, which held a month long event dedicated to Israeli Boutique breweries. During my visit to NG, I had the chance to see the owner of Golda brewing a Jerk (Jamaican Spice Mix) style beer.

A couple of weeks ago with the excellent orchestration of Gal, we purchased beer from the brewery, 4 brands to be precise:

• Wheat
• Liquid Smoke
• Brown Ale
• IPA

Wheat

The first beer was tasted that same day during lunch. It was a fine match for a hot summery day, as there is no better chiller, that a cold cold beer. This is a light colored fun beer that fits the Israeli summer perfect. A blond with a medium head, fruitish in flavor, and sparks in your mouth.

IPA

The great affection I hold for IPA beers, is meanly due to their golden-orange color that reminds me of a beautiful sunset and the saddle bitter flavor that lingers in your mouth after every sip. This beer is a bit fuller in body than the previous one but still fits perfectly to cool off a hot summer day. This beer would best  matched with meat dishes or spicy food, as its dominate flavor would not be lost among spices.

Brown Ale

This one is more heavy duty both in color and flavor. Earth like brown color accompanied by brown flavors such as coffee and caramel, the yeast is also noticeable both on the nose and pallet. This kind of beer I usually drink on its own, that is without food.

Liquid Smoke

With this one a very funny thing happened. When I opened the bottle the beer started foaming rapidly and no matter with I did it would not stop. It took 5 more minutes before the beer finally stopped foaming. This is one of the most sparklish beers I have yet to taste and as the name insinuates a smokish flavor was noticeable.

To sum thing up – If I had to match each beer with a time of day and a dish to accompany it, this would be my pick:

• Wheat – An afternoon beer.
• IPA – Indian food for diner or Meat for lunch.
• Brown Ale – At night in a pub with no food.
• Liquid Smoke – Afternoon Barbecue.

NG Saluting to Local Breweries

NG, to which my affection is very high, has dedicated the last month to promote the local beer industry, by promoting beers from local boutique breweries, and hosting brewers once a week. This is a nice action taken by my favorite Israeli meat restaurant, which not only gave stage to some local product, but exposed it’s customers to excellent bear that is not available everywhere.

Taking part in this fiesta where brewers from the local breweries how came to give “a show” on NG’s balcony. Each Friday a brewer would come and demonstrate out on the balcony brewing of one his brewery’s beers, explaining the whole process and ingredients involving in wine brewing.

Set a side the nice educational show, NG, gave us the opportunity of enjoying a selection of their cuts made in a “Drunk” manner, that is, they made the cuts marinated in bear. Alongside the beer you could order a variety of beers from the local boutique breweries. Different styles and flavors showing a wide arch of the beer world was available for the tasting.

I know that some people believe that meat should be accompanied by wine, however, on a hot summer afternoon, there is nothing like a good cold beer to accompany your 1.2KG porter house stake.

Here is the list of beers that was available:

• Dancing Camel – India Pale Ale
• Libira – Porter
• Golda – Jerk Dark Ale
• Salara – Bitter
• Isis – FreeStyle
• Shap-Beer – Lettet-B (Lettet means – Malt)
• Malka – Bright Malka
• Golan – Galil Wheat

Credit should also be given to Beer Master. These guy do an amazing job in promoting the local beer industry – Kudos.

No for the beers Iv’e tasted:

Dancing Camel – India Pale Ale –

The color is just like a beautiful deep golden sunset.

Full bodied and rich in flavors, distinct maltish flavor with a touch of sweet honey. The finish give a very very saddle bitter aftertaste.

Overall excellent beer that would fit a good juicy stake.

Golda – Jerk Dark Ale –

Brown dark Jamaican flavored beer. With the Jerk spice this beer gives a  balanced bitter flavor with some dark pepper spice.

Medium in body and very nice with non spiced meat.

The 8th Beer Festival

Even though the passion for wine had grow vastly over the last decade, the Israeli crowed is still more familiar and friendly with the close relative called beer. This week for 3 days in kibbutz Maabrot the 8th beer festival took place. Some 60 beers from both local and foreign breweries were available.

The thing i like the most in the beer festivals are the atmosphere, which unlike wine event, is always more young and cheerful. With a band playing light jezz in the background of a sunny afternoon, the atmosphere was just perfect for trying some new beer.

One interesting thing I heard from one of the brewery owners was that what he liked about beer making is the unlike wine beer is Non-Controle, which means you can do pretty much anything you want. This is nice for us consumers, to know that this brewery will experiment and try and give us some interesting beers.

These are my notes:

Haifa – Amber Ale

Somewhere between Amber and Red in color, this light and very well balanced beer was an excellent starter.

Fun to drink, and should defiantly be a beer to start your evening with.

Salara Bitter

Now this one was a whole different story. As the name

suggested this beer was dominated by bitter flavors.

I can’t help but think the this beer was very much like a traditional Mexican sauce called Mole Poblano.

Golda – Wheat

This was defiantly my favorite for this festival.

An excellent choice for a hot summery day with a touch of sweet sparkle in your mouth following by fruitish flavor that lingers nicely.

I expect great things from this brewery.

Asif – Brunet

Since I had this one with a frankfurter, I can’t relay remember its flavors, I do however feel its was an excellent companion for the H-dog.

It’s a shame that this brewery was missing all of its other beers, since I heard this have some excellent beers.

LiBira – Porter

This porter was dark brown with a saddle bitterness to it.It was full bodied with some caramel

flavors. A classic porter missing just` a bit of spiciness to make it perfect.