Alexander Beer wins 3 awards in European Beer Star

The Alexander Brewery in Emek Hefer has taken home three medals from this year's very prestigious European Beer Star competition in Munich.  This is the fourth year in a row that Alexander has won prizes in this contest -- the only Israeli brewery to have done so.  (Read an earlier post about Alexander winning this competiton here.)

Ori Sagy (center), founder and brewmaster of Alexander Beer,
is joined by operations manager Eran Weisman (second from left), 
and brewer Elad Gassner (second from right)
as they receive three awards at the
European Beer Star Competition last month in Munich.

"We are proud and excited to receive for the fourth time the approval of the greatest beer experts in the world, and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world's best beers," said Ori Sagy, the founder and brewmaster of Alexander Beer.

For the third time, Alexander Black won the gold medal in the Sweet/Milk Stout category.  Alexander Blonde took the silver medal for English Style Golden Ales, while Milk & Honey won the silver in the Baltic Style Porter category.

Pride for Israel:
Alexander's three winning beers are
screened above the stage at the
European Beer Star competition. 

In 2014, Alexander Black was the only Israeli beer to win a medal in the World Beer Cup, the other well-known international beer competition.  It won the gold medal in the Robust Porter category.

I was curious about the European Beer Star and the World Beer Cup, so I asked my friend Conrad Seidl of Vienna, also known as the "Beer Pope."  He told me that the European Beer Star was created about 15 years ago by the small, independent breweries in Germany as a counterweight to the older World Beer Cup.

"The style guidelines at the EBS focus on classic beer styles of European origin," Conrad explained, "while the WBC (organized by the U.S.-based Brewers Association) tends to invent new beer styles every year!  This, of course, works in favor of American micro-breweries and brewpubs.  They win a lot of the WBC awards, while the European brewers get relatively few.

"In fact, many German and Austrian breweries don't even bother entering the WBC, preferring the more conservative EBS."

Thank you, Conrad.  All the more reason why Alexander Beer should be commended for boldly entering these bastions of European and American brewing tradition, and bringing medals of excellence home to Israel.

Shouldn't more Israeli breweries be trying to do the same thing?