Something’s brewing

Jamil Haddad remembers a time, not long ago, when Lebanon’s beer industry consisted of one name, Almaza. During that time, about five years ago, Haddad got the idea to start home-brewing his own drafts, a hobby to complement his outdoor lifestyle windsurfing in his hometown Batroun. “We have this as part of our culture to drink beer, especially in Batroun because we have this combination of water sports and camping,” he recalls. “But it was very difficult at that time because we had one beer and one company. It was not easy to get in and learn everything.” Like other Lebanese drawn to the crafts of brewing or winemaking, Haddad went to Europe to learn about beer and brought back with him the necessary ingredients to start crafting his own. “I went to London, and I came back with a small 30 liter tank and ingredients…. I started to brew, and for three years, everyone was saying, ‘We need to do something. We need to buy this beer.’” Now, they can. Haddad is putting the final touches on his Batroun-based microbrewery and local beer brand, Colonel, which opened this summer to serve dinner and three craft beers: black Irish, red Irish and German light. Colonel is part of an expanding local beer scene, which now counts at least six different brands from Emile Strunc’s tiny home brewery, Schtrunz, to the country’s internationally successful craft brewers 961. Booming interest abroad for niche craft beer also gives local beer makers potential markets outside Lebanon’s relatively miniscule population of beer drinkers. Like Haddad’s humble beginnings, 961, for example, went from brewing in 20 liter kettles to producing today almost 2 million liters of beer per year and now sells to Brazil, Spain, the U.K., Hong Kong, Australia and the United States. Major Lebanese beverage companies have also recognized the potential for made-in-lebanon beer, says Nayef Kassatly, general manager of Kassatly Chtaura. The Bekaa Valley-based producers of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks began bottling its first mass-market pilsner, Beirut Beer, in July. With a USD25 million investment, Kassatly built production facilities capable of producing 200,000 extraliters (or 20 million liters) of beer per year. Instead of competing with the country’s most ubiquitous beer Almaza, also a pilsner, Beirut Beer’s creators hope to expand Lebanon’s volume of annual beer consumption through marketing campaigns. “We don’t think there will be competition. Right now, only 5 liters of beer per capita are consumed in Lebanon each year,” Kassatly says. A powerhouse drinks producer pushing the masses to drink local beer will likely payoff for small producers, too. In fact, Lebanese craft brewers say interest in alternatives to pilsner, which makes up 85 percent of the local market, has grown in recent years, particularly among Lebanese who have traveled or lived abroad. “The market is still learning. But there are all these people who traveled abroad and who are looking for an artisanal beer,” says Strunc, the hobby beer maker behind the brand Schtrunz. A vast Lebanese expatriate community spread across Europe’s top beer-producing countries has also sparked artisanal beer production back home. Strunc himself is half Czech, half Lebanese; his wife Olga is half German, half Lebanese. Together, Strunc jokes, they have