Purim is for merrymaking, and you can’t do that without beer, can you? Well, the Good Book tells us that Mordechai, Esther, and all the other Persians celebrated with wine. As soon as the Jews reached other countries, usually colder climes, they found that liquor was quicker.
Still, beer was never far behind at a Purim spiel or a Purim carnival. It’s popular, plentiful, and has been bringing people together for some 5,000 years.
In Israel, there have been craft beers brewed with Purim flavors, beers to be given as Purim gifts, and beers that reflect Purim’s message of letting go, “reverse-the-reverse,” and that things are not always as they seem. Most of these beers are not around anymore, but their stories should be told.
Take, for example, two Purim beers from Birateinu, the Jerusalem Beer Center, (in collaboration with the now-closed Avi Habira in Modi’in) that were introduced a year ago. They were both Imperial Pastry Brown Ales (7.5% alcohol) and quite extreme for Israeli beers. To top it off, they were named after two of Haman’s sons who ended up on the gallows! The labels contain a warning: “Life without beer is a life less enjoyable!”
Parmashta – This beer was brewed with poppy seed and apple to replicate the taste of hamantaschen, the traditional Purim triangular filled pastry. It was very dark brown and almost syrupy, but the added flavors were pretty weak and disappointing. Still, it was a rich and creamy beer, almost like an Imperial Stout.
Vaizata – This one had cocoa and vanilla additives. The flavors here were more distinct: chocolate, coffee, fruity, and winey. It was smooth and rich, good for dessert or sipping on a cold evening.
If you are lucky enough to still have bottles of these beers, the flavors should improve with age.
A few years earlier, Birateinu brought out another wild beer that was meant to be a cure for Purim hangovers. It was named Opokhmel, which is the Russian word for a hangover cure.
And since a traditional Russian cure for hangovers is pickle brine, Opokhmel was brewed with cucumbers, garlic, dill, and salt. You got all of those flavors when you tasted it, and it was actually not a bad beer at all. Whether it cured hangovers, I don’t know.
On the subject of beers that mimic pastries (not necessarily hamentaschen), we shouldn’t forget DONUT Tell Me What To Do! (5.2% alcohol) from the Oak & Ash Brewery in Beit Shemesh. This hazy, reddish-pink beer was brewed with 100 donuts! In addition, it included fresh fruit: raspberries, strawberries, and black currants.
What would you expect? It was very sweet and thick, with strong flavors of pastry dough, raspberry, strawberry, and cotton candy. Truly a dessert beer. I could not imagine having it with food.
What the Fudge? was one of the last beers brewed by the Hatch Brewery in Jerusalem in collaboration with home brewer Yoni Goren. It was called a Fudgy Chocolate Porter (5.4% alcohol), which kind of sums up what you got.
The ingredients included pretzels(!), wild berries, cherries, black currants, caramel, and salt. It was very thick, with dominant tastes of chocolate, cherry, and salted caramel. A perfect dessert beer, perhaps with a piece of cake or vanilla ice cream.
Three new Purim beers that are available now come from the BeerBazaar Brewery in Kfar Daniel. They are the creations of Nadav Eliyahu Karon, who began as production manager at BeerBazaar in May after working for many years at the Long Beach Beer Lab in California.
Karon loves India Pale Ales in the West Coast style, and that’s what these beers are.
Persian Haze – Hazy and juicy (not normally associated with the West Coast IPA). (5.5% alcohol)
Esther – Unfiltered West Coast IPA, very dry, thin body. (6.4% alcohol)Mordechai – Citrusy IPA, lightly dry hopped with Citra hops and conditioned with peels from blood oranges and Meyer lemons (a hybrid between a regular lemon and a Mandarin orange). (6.4% alcohol)
These beers are now available at BeerBazaar pubs and the online store. (www.beerbazaar.co.il/apps/bundles/bundle/17591).
Also, still in time for Purim drinking are gift cartons from BeerBazaar and the Alexander Brewery in Emek Hefer. These include the regular core beers of the breweries, as well as other goodies. The BeerBazaar cartons can be purchased online at www.beerbazaar.co.il/collections/Purim package. The Alexander cartons (which are called Adloyada) are available at www.alexander-beer.co.il/product/purim-2025/.
For 10 years, the Shapiro Brewery in Beit Shemesh has been conducting a pre-Purim project where you can buy bottles of beer with a personalized “Happy Purim” label. It can feature your name or any message you choose. These bottles are perfect Purim gifts – for people who love beer, of course.
The brewery contributes proceeds from the sale of these beers to Shekel – The Center for Inclusion for People with Disabilities.
It’s too late to order beers for this year, but it’s something to keep in mind when next Purim rolls around.
Doug Greener is the owner of MediawiSe, an agency for advertising and direct marketing in Jerusalem. He writes a web log on Israeli craft beers called Israel Brews and Views, which can be found on Facebook.
