120 Years of Egypt's Stella Beer

I have returned from vacation, and while as I explained previously, my posts will continue to be less frequent until my cataract surgery later this month, I expect it to be much more regular after that. Meanwhile, here's a site memorializing 120 years of Egypt's Stella beer. There are several photo collections (labels, breweries, history, etc) which deserve your attention, whether you know Stella from the state-owned (no quality control) years or the much improved post-privatization product.

Sports Notes: Triple Crown Winner's Owner Once Ran Egypt's Stella Brewery

The main news on  Saturday was the victory of thoroughbred American Pharoah (officially so spelled on his registration, so racing fans will never spell "pharaoh" correctly again) in the Belmont Stakes, making him the first horse in 37 years to win the Triple Crown. You may already know that he is owned by Egyptian-American businessman and breeder Ahmed Zayat. I thought it worth mentioning that Zayat (besides identifying himself variously as both Muslim and an Orthodox Jew; a Yeshiva graduate and living in an Orthodox neighborhood in Teaneck, New Jersey) used to run Egypt's Al Ahram Beverages Company, which among other things brews Stella Beer, a number of other beers, and produces Gianaclis wines.

Al Ahram beverages had been nationalized under Nasser and its quality control suffered; when it was privatized in 1997 Zayat  and a group of investors bought it, expanded its product line (including a non-alcoholic beer) and improved quality control. In 2002 the company was sold to the Heineken group, though Zayat remained involved in its management until 2007.

So if you have access to a bottle of Stella, raise a glass to a record-making three year old thoroughbred with a misspelled name.

The Barman of Cairo's Windsor Hotel Bar Remembers

Last week ended with Nelson Mandela's passing. Let me start this week with a more positive note, and with a video that will warm the hearts of old Cairo hands, and perhaps educate the young ones.

Let me begin by noting that the bar of the old Windsor Hotel in Cairo, often called "the barrel bar" because the chairs (some at least) are made from barrel staves, an old British-era bar that survives pretty much intact, is by far the greatest bar in Cairo or in all of Egypt.

Not everyone will agree with this seemingly dogmatic, sweeping, but in fact quite factual, statement.

But they will quite simply be wrong.

Deceived perhaps by flashy modern bars, the slanders of Islamist critics, or simple ignorance, they should learn from this post.

(If you still disagree, start your own bloody blog and post your own misguided opinions.)

I will not exaggerate by saying, for example, that it is the greatest bar on the African continent, or the greatest bar since the unification of Egypt in 3100 BC, because I have no way of proving that, obviously.

But I'm pretty sure it's both, nonetheless.

Now, the video. Then a bit more. Via Zeinobia's indispensable blog, and produced by these folks, is this brief but wondrous profile of the man who has been barman at the barrel bar for more than three decades. In colloquial Egyptian Arabic, but with English subtitles:

The Windsor has been a favorite of mine for some 40 years. It stands on a side street not far from where the old Shepheard's stood until Black Saturday of 1952; I understand in British days, when the senior officers stayed at Shepheard's, the lesser officer ranks stayed here. I've stayed at the hotel, which can't threaten the five-stars, and eaten at the restaurant but forgotten it, but the bar is unforgettable.

More perhaps another time. Michael Palin of Monty Python fame did one of his world travelogues from the place, and it's one of the last surviving colonial-era bars in the capital. Do they still offer the day's newspapers in library sticks, like a British club? I hate colonialism, but damn, the Brits did good officers' bars wherever they went.

The Windsor hotel website is here. A few pictures:

Some Good News from Egypt

Here's some Egyptian news that isn't depressing, though the Muslim Brotherhood might disagree: "One of the world's oldest breweries reconstructed." As the story explains (the English is imperfect; the story is from Poland):

Over 5.5 thousand years old brewing installation discovered by Polish archaeological mission at Tell el-Farcha in Egypt has been reconstructed in 3D by Karolina Rosińska-Balik, PhD student at the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology.

 "The presented reconstruction is a hypothetical assumption based on preserved structures of similar analogous buildings at both Tell el-Farcha and other brewing centres in Upper Egypt" - reserved the archaeologist.

The installation consists of three vat pits and measures about 3.4 by 4 m. The entire structure, with plan reminiscent of a three-leaf clover, was surrounded by a wall with a height of up to 60 cm. Vat pits were also separated from each other with low, narrow walls.

In order to stabilize the vessels used for brewing beer, base was used in the form of a solid clay, which was surrounded by a clay ring with a clear break.

"The purpose of this solution was probably better air circulation, which in turn would allow better control of constant temperature. Such base was usually surrounded with two concentric rows of bricks with D-shaped cross-section, designed to sustain the vessel" - explained Karolina Rosińska-Balik.

Culture Wars: Turkey's Crackdown on Alcohol, and a Kissing Protest

UPDATE: See also this article.
 After a campaign by Prime Minister Erdogan, the Turkish Parliament has passed legislation banning alcohol advertising and sharply resisting the hours during which alcohol can be sold, barring restaurants from displaying alcohol where it can be seem from outside, and barring sales near schools and mosques. The move, inspired by the Islamic orientation of the ruling AKP party, has provoked controversy and some mockery among Turkey's secular, Kemalist elites. It has also caused stocks in Efes, the Middle East's  largest brewing company, to take a dive.

At Foreign Policy, Marya Hannun adds some perspective by asking "Did Turkey Just Become a Little More Like Texas?," reminding us that the US has some strange blue laws in some areas when it comes to alcohol as well.

Nor is the is the only recent battle in the emerging Turkish culture wars. As Juan Cole notes, after a subway conductor on the Ankara subway scolded a young couple for kissing in public, a flashmob-style public kissing protest was staged by protesters. The protest is shown in the video below.

These culture wars seem to be the wave of the future in the Middle East, where the polarization of attitudes between Westernized elites and traditional populations is often quite marked.

The Archaelogy of Brewing

Ancient Egyptian Beer-Making

Though he (or she) only mentions Egypt and Sumeria in the very last line of their first post at a new blog called Ancient Ale, given the Middle East's clear priority in the field, this new blog by an archaeologist of the brewer's art may just fill an important need in the blogosphere. Looks like a bookmark.