A Brewer's Addendum: Ein Hod, Israel

So I had been building up to my last post for a little while, but my famous luck would have it that I spoke a day too soon.

Today saw yours truly take a saunter a few kilometers down the Mediterranean coast from Haifa to Ein Hod. Ein Hod is simply one of those places that needs to be seen to be believed. Artists' quarters are peppered through Old Cities the country over, but Ein Hod makes a whole town of it. Perched on a hill over the azure Mediterranean, it's a labyrinthine hamlet populated exclusively by artists. The streets erupt in sculpture gardens, brilliant ceramic signposts, and psychedelic murals. The very gate to the town itself is some Gordian wrought iron contraption.

Naturally, the place is pretty secluded and getting there requires a 3km hike uphill in the sun. The road leading up only leads to Ein Hod and--though Let's Go does not recommend hitchiking ever--many people hitch their way up the road.

It's been barely five minutes before sweaty old me finds air-conditioned sanctuary, clambering into a beat-up Sedan. My chauffeur-saviour is a shaggy older man with large frizzy hair. We spend the trip in silence until, just before letting me out, he drops a little bomb on me.

"I'm Danny by the way."

"Oh, um, Ricky," the awkward, perspiring kid offers in return.

"I make the best pizza and beer in Israel--you should come check it out later." This guy gets straight to the point, doesn't he? Ordinarily I would simply smile and shrug this off, cynical, time-weathered travel writer that I have now become. But it suddenly hits me: this is Danny Schlyfestone, a bit of a local legend. Coincidence would have it that, of all people to pick up a hitchhiker, this is a man who is indeed purportedly one of the best brewers in the country.

Originally a native of Detroit, Danny first moved to Israel at the age of 15. After gallivanting between London and California, working as a sound engineer for the likes of Tom Waits, Electric Light Orchestra, The Rolling Stones, and Rod Stewart, he finally came back to Israel in the early 90s with a newfound aim to please the taste buds after having finished up with the ears. Five years ago, he started selling his homemade ales in Ein Hod, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I get to his joint--the Artbar, an art-gallery-cum-music-venue-cum-brewhouse--and it doesn't look like much. Little more than a shack at the foot of the village, the building's front door, propped up against the wall, has fallen off its hinges while a beat-up pizza oven and huge vat of hops sit outside.

Venturing in, I demand my promised "best beer in the world." Imagine my surprise when he pulls out an old glass coke bottle filled with a translucent golden fluid. Taking a sip, any doubts soon disappear. Seriously, it's unlike any beer you've had before. It's busy in the mouth, cycling through about five different flavors--a sweet first punch on the tip of your tongue, before the malty flavor kicks in, then something I can't quite describe on the back edges of my tongue, before the bitter kick as it goes down to gullet to leave a final distinctive aftertaste of hops. Danny clearly knows the sequence well, having engineered it to a tee, and grins as he sees my eyes go wide.

The beers here are homemade--all served in the Coke and Fanta bottles in which they were finally distilled (they're all unfiltered and unpasteurized--hence all that flavor--and see their final conditioning for a couple days in the fridge). To be precise, by beer, I really mean ale, a rare commodity in the Israeli beer market that usually makes lighter lagers for the heat. Danny brews his batches daily and keeps at least five or six of his different concoctions on hand at any time. While I had just been wowed by the American Pale Ale, we cycle through the more alternative likes of the "Yeasty Beasty" and the best named beer of all time, "Yo Mama's Ale", over the course of the afternoon. The Porter was a particular treat, giving off hints of dark chocolate, ginger, cinnamon, and clove before settling into a sumptuous creamy tang.

We spend the afternoon chatting life, the universe, and everything over these quirky suds. It actually turns out that Danny, not content to be just a brewer, is also perhaps the world's only Beer Stand-up Comic, performing regularly at conferences all over the country to the delight of his boozed-up guests back home.

So, all you globe-trotting beer aficionados reading this--skim over my last blog and get to terms with the Goldstars, Alexanders, and Taybehs. Then make sure to give Ein Hod a cool once-over on your way up north.