In town for the National Capital Beer Festival, Israeli brewer Ori Sagy says the market for craft beer in Israel is in its infancy but he believes it is poised for a boom.
Sagy, who founded and runs one of the small country’s biggest microbreweries, called Alexander Brewery, said he has watched as the world has embraced craft beer and believes that while Israel isn’t a big consumer of suds today, that things are quickly changing.
“If you look at Mediterranean countries like France, Italy and Greece, which are wine cultures and really have no beer culture at all. The beer culture is increasing and they are all drinking more.”
In Italy, wine consumption dropped 3.6 per cent in 2012. In 2013, it fell a further 6.5 per cent, according to researcher Wine Monitor Nomisa. This is happening at a time when more than 551 breweries have popped up across the country, almost double the number that were operating in 2011, and Italians under the age of 54 have identified beer as their primary drink of choice, according to a recently released reports.
Sagy said, it’s not hard to see why.
“On a hot summer day, when its 30 degrees outside by the sea, you want a beer. Not wine,” he said.
He also said consumers around the world are beginning to get more picky about the food and drink that they consume. The same trend is happening in Israel.
“If you look back 20 years ago, there was no good wine in Israel. Now we have great wine,” he said. “We didn’t have good cheese or good chocolate. It’s time for a good beer revolution.”
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Alexander has been producing high quality craft beers. Some of his brews have won some of the top awards in the world, for six years now. Sagy has been brewing beer, both professionally and as a home brewer for more than 25 years. He said, while there are now a handful of established microbrewers in Israel, such as Alexander, it has only been within the past couple of years that domestic demand has really started to climb.
He said he has watched as Canada and the United States have both undergone a craft beer revolution, with consumers demanding better suds and new local brewers have opened to meet that demand. Sagy applauded the U.S., where some craft beer accounts for as much as 50 per cent of the market in certain states. In Ontario, craft beer from microbrewers still only accounts for about five per cent of the market. Still, Sagy says, that’s better than the situation in Israel.
“It’s like we are a two-day-old,” he said. “It’s just starting.”
Sagy is in town for the National Capital Beer Festival, which takes place between Friday and Sunday at Marion Dewar Plaza at Ottawa City Hall. He was touring various Ottawa area microbreweries this week and stopped in at the Big Rig Brewery. Sagy said that meeting domestic demand is still his priority and he isn’t looking to go to hard on exporting his product just yet. But, he’s eager to share Alexander’s offerings with Ottawa beer buffs and has brought two different types of beer to share at the festival, an IPA and his award winning Porter.
Sagy will also be devising a recipe with Turtle Island Brewing Co. founder, and National Craft Beer Week organizer, J.P. Fournier. The beer will be brewed and released to Ottawa bars as a special offering later this year.
He said he plans to take notes while on his tour of the Ottawa facilities and try to learn from craft beer enthusiasts throughout the weekend in the hopes of taking that knowledge back to Israel and using it to help shape the fledgling market for craft beer back home.
“This is all fascinating to me,” said Sagy.
Vpilieci@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/vpilieci
