As the sun goes to sleep, Beirut gets mesmerizing. The city is painted with pastel shades of pink and orange. An evening haze lifts up and Beirut’s skyline—with its crammed clusters of modern skyscrapers, churches, and mosques all squashed against each other like commuters on London’s tube at peak time—suddenly acquires a calming, romantic atmosphere reminiscent of a Turner painting.
Once twilight turns to night, an almost dystopian, surreal urban darkness envelops the city. The lack of light pollution is a silver lining temporary visitors might cherish. But for residents, it is just one of the many struggles they have been learning to live with. On top of countless challenges, from wheelbarrow levels of inflation to an ongoing refugee crisis, the country lacks a stable energy supply. It suffers frequent blackouts, and many households and businesses must rely on often-unaffordable private diesel generators for electricity as a result.
The few lit windows on its skyscrapers appear as owl eyes glowing in the midst of a somber, shadowy, urban jungle—tangible evidence of a stunningly beautiful yet bewildering country whose modern history is defined by a combination of tragedy and chaos.
To its relentless stockpiling of challenges, the hugely hospitable, utterly sweet, and consistently positive Lebanese people have learned to respond with a degree of resilience hardly matched elsewhere.
And it is that characteristically resilient spirit that allowed Elmir Craft Beer—one of just a handful of modern breweries in the country—to develop and thrive in the outskirts of Beirut. But as co-founder Noël Abinader explains, Elmir actually got started somewhere else.
“The first brew we ever made was in the UK, in London,” he says. “I often traveled to the UK for work and Chris [Fadel], who is my little cousin, was doing his research master at Imperial College London.”
A trained brewer and chemist, co-founder Fadel manages the technical side of the operations: “Noël was there for a couple of days, so he suggested we went to a brewing masterclass at London Fields Brewery. Once we were back in the taxi with our brew—which to be honest eventually turned out not very good—he said, ‘What do you think about opening a brewery in Lebanon?’ I was 21 at the time, I just said, ‘Yes, for sure!’ A year later we were planning everything and it was happening.”
The duo tapped food engineer, microbiologist, and fermentation expert Marc Bou Zeidan as the brewery’s third co-founder and kicked off the project with a humble 500-liter Braumeister kit in 2016.
“What we had was amateur equipment. We learned that one year later, when I contacted VLB Berlin and the German consultant told me that this was not ideal to get consistent beer,” says Abinader. “That is when we bought an Italian brewhouse from TMCI EasyBräu.”
With the right kit, the Elmir team managed to launch much of what eventually became its core range—an Amber Ale, an IPA, and a Wheat Beer—in November 2018.
The Amber Ale (4.5%) is a nutty, savory, and caramelly session beer. It has a fruit-forward nose of red grapes and plums that somehow reminds of a British Best Bitter, alongside delicate spicy notes from a sober use of US and UK hops. The IPA’s (5.5%) classic piney, spicy, orangey notes betray a certain West Coast inspiration. The palate, however, is delicate—although with marked bitterness, balanced by just enough caramel from the malt.
For Imad Chalawit, who co-owns Jive Bar & Records in central Beirut, Elmir’s IPA is made to fit in with Lebanese culture. “When people visit my bar, they are always surprised to find a locally made IPA,” he says. “Once they drink it, they keep going back to it, which never really happened with other Lebanese craft beers before. Elmir managed to create something that has the same quality standards of British and American beers, but is somehow made for the Lebanese palate. It’s different, not the IPA that you would taste elsewhere.”
“Elmir managed to create something that has the same quality standards of British and American beers, but is somehow made for the Lebanese palate.”
The Wheat (5%), meanwhile, is a sort of tuned-down, crisper Bavarian Weizen. There’s banana and clove, but underneath an elegant floral character that hints at a Dutch Witbier.
Initially, the team steered clear of Lagers, to distance themselves from mass-produced alternatives. Yet a Pilsner (5%) was part of the plan all along and was soon integrated into the lineup. The beer is delicious, with a fragrant, subtly floral, and cereally nose, and some honey too. A surprising bitterness on the palate, and a satisfying malty close.
“My first experience with craft beer actually began with a Pils around 2010,” Abinader says. “It was again in London, at Tom Aikens’ restaurant. There I tasted a Meantime Pilsner for the first time. I thought ‘Wow!’” That initial taste inspired a visit to the brewery, he notes, adding that Elmir’s current color-coded labels are an echo of that fortuitous discovery.
“My first experience with craft beer actually began with a Pils around 2010. It was again in London, at Tom Aikens’ restaurant. There I tasted a Meantime Pilsner for the first time. I thought ‘Wow!’”
A range of three “terroir” beers designed to champion Lebanese ingredients enriches Elmir’s regular lineup. Aleph (8.5%) is brewed with carob molasses from Mount Lebanon, a traditional Lebanese sweetening ingredient. It is a long, warming Amber Ale whose nose is led by dark and red fruits with some floral undertones. Spicy tones resonate on the midpalate and a touch of chocolate appears in the finish.
Of a rather divergent personality, Anfé (4.8%) is a sour, wheat-based Ale inspired by German Gose. It features coriander seeds, salt from the salt marshes of the coastal city of Anfeh, and Lactobacillus harvested from Lebanese yogurt. It is light, fun, and lemony, with a delicate floral scent of jasmine and lavender, and a thirst-quenching tartness.
Meanwhile, Arzé (5.1%), whose name refers to the cedars of Lebanon (a national symbol that’s also featured on the country’s flag), is a well-accomplished take on the wood-aged Stout category. Aromas of cocoa, coffee, and licorice layer on top of cigar-box and spicy notes of sandalwood, frankincense, and nutmeg from the cedar. A certain balsamic element freshens up the palate before the spices kick in again in the finish.
Elmir beers are clean, precise, poised. A degree of quality that is as remarkable as it is frankly unexpected—and not (just) because of the brewery’s young age. In a country with negligible beer heritage—the only historical brand is Almaza, co-owned by Heineken and its majority stakeholder, Geneva-based investor Philippe Jabre—and little access to high quality foreign beer, achieving international standards is no easy feat. In these circumstances, hitting barely acceptable levels of quality may be considered an achievement in itself, and improvements can take exponentially longer than in more emancipated beer markets.
To tackle the challenge, the team maximizes all opportunities to benchmark against renowned craft beer brands by seeking out imported beer and visiting breweries abroad, and makes the most of the feedback they receive from judges when taking part in international competitions.
“We set our own benchmark because there is no such thing here in Lebanon,” says Fadel. “We get our hands on beers that are available here as we do have access to some, although transportation will damage them a bit. We also travel a bit; we measure what quality means to [others]. Honestly, we are very much in control of where the beer is and where we want to take it. We say it with a lot of humility but also confidence. We know where we are in the market.”
“We are very much in control of where the beer is and where we want to take it. We say it with a lot of humility but also confidence. We know where we are in the market.”
With a hospitality industry largely unfamiliar with craft beer, educating bar staff on handling its products represents an additional challenge for Elmir. “Bartenders are very open [to learning]. There are things that they do not know and that they discover through us,” says Fadel. Educating hospitality clients goes from giving storage advice to explaining how to handle a keg or how to clean a draft system. Often it means addressing what a craft product is, too, and why it might need a little more care when compared to mass-produced beer.
“This is a key point for us; it is part of our approach,” continues Fadel. “We expect from our client bars that they take care of their draft systems. The worst thing in craft beer is when you have a good beer and you drink it poured from a badly maintained line and it’s shit, and we do not want that to happen when we work this hard to make good beer.”
It’s this approach that led the Elmir project to stand out from other Lebanese craft beer endeavors, and earned the team the respect of both Lebanese beer enthusiasts and bar operators like Chalawit.
“Before Elmir we were working with another craft beer brand. They had a good portfolio, but they weren’t consistent enough and didn’t offer a good service. It just didn’t work out, while Elmir was very solid from the start,” Chalawit says, adding that all Lebanese beer is now benchmarked against Elmir. “They have set the standards for what Lebanese craft beer should be and can be. If I serve another beer to my guests who’ve already tried Elmir’s stuff, they are certainly going to do a comparison, so all beers needs to meet (or exceed) those standards.”
“Chris not only fractured Beirut’s beer world, but cracked it wide open. In his beers he expresses everything, displaying a profound knowledge of, and respect for, tradition while simultaneously giving it the middle finger.”
For Camille “Camo” Njeim, bartender and beverage program director at a Beirut-based hospitality group, Elmir’s successful—and pioneering, for Lebanese brewing standards—formula is a combination of artistry and technical knowledge.
“Chris not only fractured Beirut’s beer world, but cracked it wide open,” he says. “In his beers he expresses everything, displaying a profound knowledge of, and respect for, tradition while simultaneously giving it the middle finger. Classic yet ultra cutting-edge-and-modern, all of this executed with technical skill, palate sensibility and a scientific approach.”
For a Lebanese craft brewery, sourcing the ingredients can pose an additional significant challenge.
The Lebanese pound was once pegged to the U.S. dollar at a rate of about 1,500 pounds to $1. During my visit to the country just before Christmas, the black-market rate—effectively the real-world rate used by all but banks and official sources—was 40,000 pounds per $1. On my first currency exchange, I walked out with a brick of local cash.
Months later, in February, the government adjusted the official exchange rate. It was set at 15,000 pounds to the dollar, a nearly 90% devaluation from its longtime peg, and still a far cry from its real market value. As I type, it sits at 92,300 to $1, a figure that is unlikely to last much longer.
With the high volatility of the domestic market, the brewery cannot get longer supplier contracts, so consistent levels of quality are ensured by avoiding overreliance on sought-after aromatic hops, careful planning, and adopting a strategic approach to purchasing. “Getting ingredients from abroad is definitely a challenge, particularly with hops,” says Fadel. “We need to rely on a single shipment a year, but sometimes you really just need those hops. Malt is kind of OK, but again, just one shipment a year from Germany. But transportation costs have skyrocketed, and energy costs too, particularly for glass. Glass is a big issue for us.”
“Getting ingredients from abroad is definitely a challenge, particularly with hops. We need to rely on a single shipment a year, but sometimes you really just need those hops.”
As for the supply end of the business, managing accounts and payments presents extra struggles largely unknown to brewers elsewhere. The Lebanese pound devaluates so quickly that businesses risk losing money overnight from their very own revenues. As a contingency measure, many price their goods and get paid in U.S. dollars instead, ensuring they exchange whatever Lebanese pounds they might have received before close of business, every day.
“Our prices are listed in U.S. dollars. Two years ago, we were one of the first and very few F&B suppliers to do so. Our clients pay us in Lebanese pounds, but always at the daily rate. Once we get paid, we immediately buy dollars, on the same day,” says Abinader.
The retail channel is the most problematic as it tends to pay with a two-to-three-week delay, during which time exchange rates are likely to have widened. Also, payments are partly made through bank transfers, a dreaded solution in Lebanon’s current cash economy as, unless withdrawn immediately, revenues stuck in the bank devalue quickly.
“Bank transfers are in Lebanese pounds, but you just cannot simply withdraw to buy dollars. Technically, our banks are bankrupt. They can only be used for money transfer or [very limited] cash withdrawal,” Abinader says.
Elmir’s clients adapted too. Chalawit, who serves Elmir beer on draft, advertises its prices in dollars but accepts payments in the local currency. To help guests with their orders, he uses a point-of-sale system that updates prices in real time whenever a new exchange rate is uploaded. “We adjust all the prices in one click,” he says. “People come in one day and they have a beer for, let’s say, 150,000 pounds. Then they come the next day and have the same exact beer for 170,000 pounds.”
With candid honesty, Abinader admits that Lebanon’s ongoing challenges led his craft beer consumer base to shrink considerably. “Our sales peaked in September 2019. Then, like all Lebanese businesses, we were hit quite badly by the social uprising and the financial crash. The middle class, who are our potential craft beer consumers, reduced a lot because of the financial crisis.”
A report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia showed how the middle class had indeed eroded significantly following the 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut, with middle-income earners forming less than 40% of the population in 2020, compared to 57% a year earlier. A later report claimed that nearly half of the country’s population had been pushed into poverty since Lebanon’s economic crisis started, nearly doubling the country’s poverty rate from 42% in 2019 to a staggering 82% in late 2021.
“But we were actually hit on another level,” Abinader is keen to point out. “Many youngsters, the generation between 20 and 35 years old that drinks craft beer, left the country, especially after the port explosion of 2020.”
A 2021 Gallup poll found that a record 63% of Lebanese did indeed want to leave permanently, up from 26% before the crisis. According to the Beirut-based Information International research firm, over 215,000 people—mostly from a younger, highly educated demographic—left Lebanon between 2017 and 2021. A startling figure for a country of just 6.7 million people.
An international civil servant, who lived in Beirut for over a decade, told me about the inconceivable circumstances that recently convinced him to move to Western Europe with his family, and flee Lebanon for good: “If you tried to sell this scenario as a disaster movie, you got an economic crisis, you got corruption, you got a political crisis, you got a security crisis. Then we are going to explode half the city and we are going to add a pandemic on top of it. People would say, ‘Come on, dude, that is just too much.’ But that is exactly what we went through.”
Despite the challenges, the Elmir team is confident that Lebanon offers plenty of untapped potential for craft beer. “Things only started to pick up last summer; we are back to some kind of normal state of business from June last year,” says Abinader. “Our customer base is now tinier, but the potential is still there. Lebanon has an untapped craft beer market and there is room for growth. We will [even] have competition next year, because the largest brewer in Lebanon [Brasserie Almaza] just bought a small craft brewery [Vagabond], but we want to be leading the high end of craft beer in Lebanon, by looking for quality before volume.”
The brewery now supplies numerous and diverse on-premise venues across the country.
The list even includes Burgundy, one of Beirut’s most popular wine-focused restaurants.
For owner and wine lover Ziad Mouawad, it was the exceptional and consistent quality of Elmir’s beers that granted them room in the fridge alongside some of the most esteemed wines in the world. “Elmir and the other Lebanese beers are simply not playing in the same league. I found that my guests feel the beers meet their expectations in terms of taste. What we've noticed with wine drinkers is that they are pleasantly surprised to find Lebanese beers that are this good,” he says. “Clients become enthusiasts. I was never a beer enthusiast myself, until Elmir made me one. It has the merit and the burden of paving the way and raising the quality bar.”
In response to growing demand, Abinader is about to increase the brewery’s output potential, from a current 1,400 barrels to about 5,700 BBLs. Elmir’s 8.5-BBL brewhouse will be replaced by a new unit that will be able to produce 34-BBL batches, with new vessels and fermenters as the business grows.
To allow for the expansion, the brewery will also move from its current site on the outskirts of Beirut to a more visitor-friendly, central location near a shopping mall. A gastropub, rather than a simple taproom, will adjoin the brewery, offering both local and international food. Hospitality will also extend to the production site, which is being designed with public tours in mind.
Upcoming collaboration brews should help build Elmir’s authority and international renown, with Italy’s Canediguerra a likely candidate. In addition, the team is planning to diversify production.
“We will be exploring other fermented drinks and will try to innovate,” says Abinader. “We want to be at the forefront, using alternative raw materials. We will start by seeing how much we can grow here, what is our maximum potential in Lebanon, then we will focus on export.”
Elmir’s multiple promising projects follow its remarkable first years of existence. By educating the industry and benchmarking beer quality standards, Elmir is driving the development of a quality beer culture in Lebanon, to the benefit of the wider Middle Eastern region.
All in the midst of a crisis worthy of a totally unrealistic disaster movie.
Words + Photos by Jacopo Mazzeo
