Bantermarket Blog

I picked up a couple of these on a Tuesday afternoon (loves a weekday off!). I was curious: drinking wheat beer brewed on the Red Sea riviera of Africa isn’t something you do every day. Although actually, I might get into the habit now I’ve done it a couple of times.

This is the only example I’ve yet come across of an Arab or African brewery attempting a reasonably serious traditional European style of beer. Apparently it’s only been around for about five years. So some of my first throughts before trying it were that it might be either really nice or pretty dodgy – not much middle ground.

Anyway, I bought a couple of bottles from Cheers in Heliopolis. 8.50 each. Wheat beer is thought to be one of the closest modern styles to ancient Egyptian beer as consmed by your average Siptah however many thousands of years ago. Who probably sat near where I’m sitting now in Heliopolis thinking ‘fuck this, let’s get a pint’: proto-LAAAD. The bottle is a lot like the standard Luxor Classic lager except with a different coloured label and some tasting notes, only in English, on the neck:

‘A South German style of beer made from barley and wheat malt. A yeast that produces some spiciness and unique flavours of banana and cloves. The ‘Hefe’ prefix means “with yeast”, hence the beer’s unfiltered and cloudy appearance. Twist the bottle before serving and serve with a lemon wedge, which gives a flavorful snap.’

Intriguing. This is an Egyptian beer, remember. I’ll skip the lemon, though, thanks, I’d prefer a rash. 5% ABV.

This is a good time to mention that I’m really not an expert on wheat beer, at all. I love it, I drink it whenever I can, in hot-ish weather especially, but as you probably know it’s extremely expensive in Scotland. My exposure to main brands, other than one-offs at home and in central Europe, has hitherto been limited to Erdinger, Franziskaner, Hoegaarden, Tucher and Weihenstephaner, all of which I think are great, especially Franziskaner. It really gets my lederhosen in a twist when people put lemon or lime in them though.

Quite unlike other wheatbeers, Luxor pours very easily even into a dry glass. Amazingly, the head disappears almost as quickly as with a lager and hardly leaves any lacing. It doesn’t look that much like other wheatbeer either, there’s obviously the opaqueness but it’s quite a deep browny colour for the style and has an orangey tinge to it. And it’s completely opaque: you can’t even see movement or shadows through it. The smell is very wheaty and citrusy. A bit of banana and maybe clove. Not very much spice though. Does it smell like apricot? Personally I think it smells like apricot.

It tastes great. Well-balanced sweetness and bitterness, yeast, citrus, and understandably wheat. Orange. A bit of banana. If it doesn’t smell like apricot, I definitely think it tastes like it. I reckon the yeast also balances perfectly with the fruity flavours. It’s a kind of middle ground between the (relative) mellowness of Erdinger and the hard-hitting Weihenstephaner. Only slighty fizzy, and a bit dry. The aftertaste basically gives you more of the same, with a definite clovey flavour. Overall, quality.

Luxor Weizen is the best beer yet, tied with Stella. That said, you need to consider my final mark in the context of a strong-ish wheat beer, that is you’d normally probably only have two or three tops in a night I’d reckon, and it’s probably too strongly-flavoured to drink it really regularly like every couple of days. It gains points because it’s great value: it works out about £1.70 a litre, compared with £5 or something absurd like that for wheat beer at home. If a Bavarian ever finds this blog I’m going to get in serious deepy for this, but I’m going to do it anyway (drumroll please): 9/10.

Omar Khayyam is possibly the most famous (or should that be ‘least infamous’?) Egyptian wine. This is the red I’m looking at, lately white and rose Omar Khayyams have also been brought out. I suppose before I start I should point out that I’m ‘reviewing’ wine, much like the other drinks, from the point of view of normal people. That is, those who fit into neither the double-breasted blazer and polkadot bow tie-wearing nor, conversely, the highlighter-green Diadora tracksuit-wearing stereotypes. I should also point out that I’m really not a big fan of French wine, generally speaking: I think it’s outrageously overpriced and often hard to match to normal people food which I usually eat like haggis suppers, black pudding, Irn Bru bars, chips and curry or battered deep-fried pizza. Caveat lector, I suppose.

But onwards, to the wine. I bought my first bottle of Omar Khayyam from the usual Drinkie’s in Heliopolis. 2009, though I can’t imagine the contents change too much year-by-year, there not being exactly inundations of rain in this part of the world. The bottle is quite cool: it has that handsome old-fashioned Arabic script on the front and a stanza of the big O-man’s famously oenophilic verse, translated into Arabic, and the same in French and English on the back. It says it’s made of bobal grapes, and it has French on the front label which I suppose is a good sign. Gianaclis is now a subsidiary of – yes, you guessed it – al-Ahram. 43LE, good grief. ABV 12.5%.

It seems quite dark in colour when poured. But the nose isn’t particularly robust. Standard red fruit aroma you usually get from a Valencian wine, the area to which this grape is native, though mild and without much depth, and that’s really about it.

The taste is a lot better. Again, it’s fruity. Not too dry, though. A hint of spice perhaps? Pretty much like a standard reasonably good cab sauv actually, with an interesting ‘hmm, that’s new’ aspect. It’s not nearly as tanniny, puckery as Casillero del Diablo or whatever cab sauv you like at home (cue a gaggle of middle-aged men in double-breasted blazers baying for my blood from their club chairs). Definitely drinkable. It’s managed to taste like a decent cab sauv or Spanish wine, quite rich and with varied undertones, so quite unlike wines we might label ‘easy drinking’ in Scotland (in that it actually has some sort of flavour), despite being pretty light and moreish and, well, easy to drink. Viz., it actually goes down amazingly well. I reckon this would be one to watch for getting majorly slanged. TBC. But it’s also quite complex, you know: are those cherries? Raspberries? Blackcurrants? Does anyone care?

So this Omar Khayyam is pretty good I think. Delicious with beef mince and vegetables in tomato sauce with pasta or rice, standard (I sense a man in a polkadot bow tie readying poison for me now). It tastes quite like some wines from Valencia. Which would make sense since apparently it’s made from one of the most popular Valencian grapes, and the climate in the Delta near Alexandria where I believe they’re grown is pretty similar to the Costa Blanca. I was on holiday with my family this summer in Xabia, not far from Valencia, and drank a little bit of local wine, and while it’s the same sort of general style I’d definitely reserve judgment on whether Omar Khayyam is any better or worse. However much the eponymous poet loved bevvy and burds, this might not be the one to buy if you’re out with a lady (LOL) since you can easily neck a lot of it: potentially quite embarrassing.

Value? I don’t know. I mean, when you drop 43ish on a bottle of wine when you could get half a litre of brandy for 16 or 18, it seems rubbish. But then, compare the price to beer which is 7ish per tin and you think hmm, it’s not that bad actually, it’s more just that spirits are astonishingly cheap than anything else. You should also remember that the brandy for about 16 per half litre is comparatively pretty shit. So, Omar Khayyam, overall quite recommended. Definitely one of the better wines from this part of the world: 7/10.

Al-Ahram is part of Heineken international. So they brew Heineken here, in Giza. It’s regarded as a bit of a posher beer than Sakara, and definitely more so than Stella, and so it costs more. Personally, I think Stella and Luxor Classic are so good that there’s not much point really in drinking the other normal-strength lagers. Especially so because Heineken is at least 2 or 3LE more expensive, usually more. I like it, I drink it at home from time to time, but usually there’s Tennent’s or Harp which I prefer if I have lager because they’re probably about as good-tasting and definitely better value.

We all know what a can of Heineken looks like, and what it tastes like. To be honest, I don’t think there’s much point ‘reviewing’ it and rating it. So I won’t. This entry is basically ‘Heineken exists in Egypt’, for the sake of completion. It’s pretty much the same here as at home, actually. Contrast that with the Heineken in Greece or Syria, which I think is definitely noticeably different. But the advantage of it is that it’s the only widely-available lager which is between Stella (4.5% ABV) and Meister Max (8%) in strength, being 5% ABV. So if you were out one night and wanted something a wee bit stronger but didn’t want to get destroyed on Meister Max, Heineken would be a good option.

What do you even say? How can human language, with its necessary limitations, describe this experience? Answers on a postcard, winner gets a roll of sellotape. Al-Ahram’s resident standup comedian never fails:

‘If you’re seeking a more daring experience, make sure you try out the Sakara King 10% (long live the King).’

‘Ash al-malik indeed. I remember it being 12% alcohol until even the start of this year, but now al-Ahram has somehow contrived to reduce it to 10% ABV and simultaneously make it taste much worse.

It pours. The head seems to be made of plastic at first sight. Looks like Charles Kennedy pished into a pint glass on a Saturday morning and kept it in his fridge for a few weeks. Smells like sweetcorn smothered in syrup.

Does it taste that bad? I don’t know whether it tastes bad. Maybe it tastes like character-building. In terms of more concrete substances however, it tastes like chalk in Lyle’s golden syrup. Yum. Porridge, anyone? Wait, you don’t put chalk in porridge!

Phwoar. Urrrk. Onomatopoeia. Not the best beer in the world. Excellent for getting you pished out your nut however. King/10.

Ahh, here we are at last. Almost as iconic as Stella, though for altogether less wholesome reasons. Al-Ahram produces a hilarious description of it, in Eengleesh as well:

‘With its 8% alcohol, Meister Max is a beer for a new and daring men generation.
Meister Max was the first high alcohol beer to be launched in the Egyptian market and still it’s the market leader because that beer offers you power, taste and style at the same time.
Meister Max is a sophisticated and premium beer with an international dimension for the stylish and strong men only. It enforces your masculinity and expresses who you truly are; a virile man… It’s part of the way you look and the way you act. It’s got the looks and power just like you.
Meister Max gets you in the mood quickly with its powerful buzz and very acceptable taste ( – LMAO): that beer is here to challenge you, to make your life to the max with style and control!’

I was quite unwell with laughter the first time I read that. Anyway, comes out of a black half-litre can, or a 330ml can if you’re, eh, health-conscious? (ahem). They serve it in 330ml bottles in pubs increasingly because too much in a short time has been known to cause public order issues, or ‘Arab Springs’ as we seem to be saying in English… 8% ABV.

Fleeting head, a decent lace though. The colour actually looks quite good, it’s a pleasant golden-yellow rather than the horrific orangey-chemical of most special brew at home. It smells like sweet malt. And actually, I think it smells cheesy (but then, you all know I’m insane).

You bring it to your lips and sort of wince in the process, but take a sip, raise your eyebrows and think wow, that’s not bad. And it’s really not. You don’t taste the 8%. Until the next morning ( – THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID). But it’s good. It’s quite hoppy, again, sweet, a lot of corn. Orangey. It’s controversial, but I think it tastes a bit like hard cheese. A drinkable beer in its own right, but moreover three or four of these and I’m pretty happy. If Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon even heard about this, they’d probably have a fit (the fucking bawbags).

Definitely full of character. ‘Meister Max’… the very mention is enough to make laconic bar waiters from here to Homs and beyond shudder at the memory of all the fights they’ve had to break up because of this soup. Anyway, I like Meister Max, I have good times with Meister Max, and I think we need to vote the SNP the fuck out so we can get Meister Max in Scotland. 8/10.

Egypt’s Other Lager. Also brewed by al-Ahram, though this is a much more recent innovation than Stella. Americans generally seem to prefer this to its more venerable sister lager. I’ve had it out of half-litre cans, which is as far as I know the only serving it comes in. 4.0% ABV.

It pours easily; the head tends to stick around for an even shorter time than Stella; the colour is pretty unremarkably yellowy. The nose is really very faint. There’s a little bit of sweetness, a slight hint of grainy rice, and that’s about it.

The taste is very light, pleasant but pretty unremarkable like the smell. It’s quite watery and dull when compared with Stella. Slightly hoppy, slightly sweet… there’s really nothing much noteworthy about it. Light and refreshing. I’d say Sakara’s actually not unlike Miller except reasonably good. Which perhaps explains why Americans are often fond of it.

Sakara Gold is nice, though not really noteworthy. It’s quite good as a first pint for some quick refreshment before moving on to Stella. But since the more famous lager is much more flavourful (yet really not a whole lot heavier) and usually slightly cheaper there seems to be little reason to me to recommend Sakara over it. It’s a bit of a shame because Sakara is still really quite pleasant, just not up to the high standard of Stella. 7/10.

The third wildely-available native Egyptian lager, third that is in terms of age anyway. This Luxor series of beer, though, isn’t brewed by al-Ahram, astonishingly, rather the Egyptian International Beverages Company in al-Guna: the only other major brewery in Egypt, as far as I know. Comes out of half-litre bottles or cans. 4% ABV.

It probably looks better than Stella or Sakara, it’s a rich deep golden colour. The head is nearly nonexistent. Practically no lacing. Smells citrusy and slightly hoppy.

Luxor is probably the most unique-tasting lager I’ve had here yet. It’s definitely very remarkably citrusy, limey, for the style of beer. Also quite light and refreshing. Medium-bodied, and with a slight hoppy aftertaste.

Pretty much an open and shut, or rather perhaps ‘sip and enjoy’, beer. Not complicated. It combines instant refreshment like Sakara with a more interesting flavour like Stella. Excellent with fish. It’s good overall, but it doesn’t really quite match up to the depth or relative complexity of Stella. Highly recommended though, 8/10.

I wasn’t ready for this. I’m not sure I ever will be. Brewed in al-Guna. Comes out of a lethal-looking bright red half-litre can with ‘XXX’ smeared luridly over the front: it’s almost as if you’ve hired that Sudanese prostitute already before you’ve even taken a sip. 10% ABV.

It pours like a beast. Looks a bit like someone seriously dehydrated has urinated in a pint of Deuchar’s. The head explodes and then dies a gruesome, Shakespearean death almost immediately. Faint aromas of rice if you can get past the overtones of syrup, syrup and more syrup.

‘What just happened to my tastebuds?’ Truly an overwhelming experience. A bit like vomiting with your mouth shut. But it tastes… actually… sort of good though. It probably goes without saying that two or three cans gets you fucked.

XXX/10.

Picture my surprise when I walked into another offy in Heliopolis only to discover that Bolanachi puts its stamp on brandy as well. This interestingly-named tipple comes in a 250ml bottle for a mere 7.50EP. 550ml is a paltry 14EP. At that price the link between the brandy’s title and a certain brainchild of George Osborne is purely coincidental. The alcohol content is 30%, which fits with the more watery consistency of the poured liquid.

The colour is quite light, similar to a Spanish brandy with water. It doesn’t smell terrible. Caramel, and there’s a bit of that pomace-y smell you get with grappa. Also a bit of chemical nastiness a la Tesco Value Brandy though unfortunately. But it’s a bit better when you take a sip. The taste is also pretty unremarkable though. It’s sweet and caramelly, kind of like Jura whisky with a decent spash of water in it. A warm yet light flavour fills the mouth which disappears quickly as you swallow ( – that’s what she said). It’s a bit watery because it’s quite weak for a brandy I suppose. There’s a taste of grain alcohol reminiscent of Bell’s (eugh) which causes it to lose points. Altogether not an entirely unpleasant experience though.

This seems to be the one of the most popular spirits in Egyptian pubs. It’s normally drank from half-pint (!!!) glasses with plenty of ice (but it’s probably better to ask for it without I reckon), with Stella as a sort of chaser/accompaniment, and if you get the Stella you often seem get a plate of chickpeas or salty, slight spicy warm fava beans to go with. A pretty tasty combination, but prone to getting you shteamin’ and ragingly thirsty rather quickly.

Vat 20 isn’t too bad. It’s a fairly standard kind of flavour, goes down quite easily, definitely several steps up from T value brandy, but I wouldn’t say there’s anything notably good about it except the price. Fairly nice, though also fairly Lenzie, in apple flavour Mirinda (cue Stavros Bolanchi spinning in his grave like a drunken dervish), which would be better if you want to get shteamin’ really quickly. I’ll say 5/10.

The Egyptian classic. Asking for ‘a beer’ here will get you Stella. Anywhere that sells alcohol in Egypt will sell Stella. Some pubs only sell Stella. So this analysis is mainly academic, even more so than the others. I buy it in the iconic green half-litre bottles in pubs and normally in cans from the offy (that way it’s easier to carry moar back home like a boss). This lager is brewed by al-Ahram, best in KHEgypt since 1897 ya basha. ABV 4.5%.

It usually pours well. The colour is a fairly standard yellowy-orange. Quite like Tennent’s. The head has a bad habit of collapsing after a few minutes, even if you use a proper pint glass. There’s nothing at all noteworthy about the smell either, a bit of malt and hops and a slight sweetness.

Being a lager, it’s the taste of Stella that’s the main event. It tastes fresh, quite pleasantly full-bodied, a wee bit sweet, not too much though, just right, and slightly fruity. The aftertaste especially is great, probably as strong as the initial taste and mouthfeel themselves, you get plentiful hops that make you want moar. And moar you can have, normally for less than £1. Azeem ya basha.

It’s the versatility of the taste that means it goes well with practically any Egyptian cuisine. Stella’s quite good with fish, amazing in large quantities with chicken and rice, and also surprisingly nice with liver and stuffed pigeon. It’s also pretty good in large quantities on its own, oddly enough. But in most decent cheap pubs you get a plate of chickpeas or fava beans to go with your bevvy.

Stella has to be the best widely-available lager I’ve ever had (gasp). Even Krombacher, which to my poorly-developed Scottish taste buds is fantastic, only comes in (a close) second place to Stella. Authentic Egyptian, recommended to anyone. 9/10.