Just Maybe The World’s Most Surprising Beerfest

by Brett Atkinson on

We seem to spend an inordinate time here at Gadling writing about beer, especially when it rolls around to Oktoberfest season. Click here for Justin’s post about the best beer tents in Munich, and here for his video insight into the most exciting funfair rides on offer after a few foaming steins.

My own hazy memories of September in Munich include enduring the “Drei Loopen” roller coaster after a lunch of Lowenbrau and pretzels.

A quieter and altogether suprising alternative to the Oktoberfest is the small scale beerfest that recently took place in the Palestinian town of Taybeh. Brewer Nadim Khoury is a Christian, but out of respect for his Muslim neighbours actually brought forward the start date to avoid clashing with Ramadan.

A range of brews were available for ten shekels (around $1.60) and festivities included the Palestinian rap group DAM and local hip hop crews Boikutt and G-Town. Sounds like a cool place to be.

Click here for an excellent article on the challenges of being a brewer on the West Bank.

Story and pic via the BBC.

Before Rough Guides and Lonely Planet

by Brett Atkinson on

Thanks to everyone who commented on my recent post about how to deal with old guidebooks. I’ve decided to keep only the most recent edition of any particular country. It may sound like a big deal but I’ve actually ending ditching a grand total of two books. Hey, it’s a start.

In moving my office back home I’ve just rediscovered one book which I definitely won’t be ditching. Before Lonely Planet and before Rough Guides, the Commercial Press of Jerusalem was publishing the “Path-Finder Guide to Palestine, Transjordan and Syria”.

The slim volume was produced in 1941 for Australian and New Zealand troops based in Egypt before they moved on to battle in North Africa in World War 2. I picked up my copy at a garage sale in Auckland.

The focus is firmly on the sights, and while there are no reveiws of hotels or restaurants an ad for the “Piccadilly!!! Cafe” offers “Good Food!! Good Drinks!! Dancing!! Orchestra!! Prompt Service!!” – (almost…) everything an ANZAC soldier could want on his R & R.

Apparently there was no shortage of exclamation marks back then.

For such a modest little book, it’s a poignant read as it covers places like the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek, Beirut, Nablus and Damascus – all map references with very different historical resonance almost seventy years after it was first published. in 1941.

Traveling in Palestine

by Erik Olsen on

It’s not the first place on my travel wish list, but
you have to hand it to writer Rebecca Sinderbrand for heading to a place like Palestine (AKA Hamastan) to experience
first hand the state of affairs there. In this piece in online Magazine
Slate she takes a look at post-election Palestine and talks with folks on the street to find out how Palestinians
are dealing with the future of their country/land/poltics following the surprising (to the Bushies anyway) victory of
the militant group Hamas in the recent elections. Some, it turns out, are not so happy. One guy wonders whether the
much stricter Hamas will impose Sharia law, thereby making it much harder to drink beer (a valid concern in my book).
But others are ebullient, and some apprently see the election as a rebuttal to American efforts to influence the
region, saying "Why do they think they can tell us what to do? Do they listen to our opinions of their leaders?
You think we get a say in what America does?" Perhaps another valid point. Either way, I enjoyed this piece more
than I have many of the others I’ve read about Palestine and the Palestinians since the vote.