הדף של danny bira דני בירה

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

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Top 10 microbreweries

Everyone in the Carmel range seems to know “Danny Bira,” US-born Danny Schlyfestone, who runs the funky Art-Bar in the picturesque artist’s colony of Ein Hod, where live bands play on weekends. Schlyfestone is a true home-brewer who is forever experimenting. He always stocks at least five different beers — all interesting and distinct.

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