This almost Christmas story happened 11 years ago. I wrote about it on my website before, but due to technical problems the article was lost. Now I have decided to restore it at last.

One beautiful summer evening I was lying on the couch reading about my favorite beer. I read about a literary contest for essays on German beer. The first prize will be a trip to a brewery in Anapa. “Where is Ashkelon, and where is Anapa”, I lazily thought … And then suddenly decided, because what the hell is not kidding, maybe I will win – the contest is anonymous and no one knows that I am from Israel. In the article I had to write about German beer and mention the organizer of the contest, the Bogerhof brewery.

Ten minutes and the storyline and then article was ready. And then it turned out that my essay was the best and I was flying to Anapa at the invitation of Alexey Boger, the owner of the brewery. Then we brewed a very interesting beer, and at the same time we had a rest in this wonderful city. However, enough lyrics, it is better to read the text (it is completely fictional), and enjoy the photos at the same time.

Ten minutes and the storyline and then article was ready. And then it turned out that my essay was the best and I was flying to Anapa at the invitation of Alexey Boger, the owner of the brewery. Then we brewed a very interesting beer, and at the same time we had a rest in this wonderful city. However, enough lyrics, it is better to read the text (it is completely fictional), and enjoy the photos at the same time.

” What is beer to me? It has long been more than a hobby; it has simply been part of my life. And it all started with German beer, which I first tasted in my youth.

My father was a professional military man and I grew up, accordingly, in distant garrisons. There was not much entertainment, but there was too much order. The bed should always be made without a single wrinkle, the old shoes should always be shiny, as at…, however, the details are unnecessary. Life was like a first-year soldier’s 🙁 But the worst was my father’s judgmental look when something was “out of order”.

But one day everything changed. A friend of my father’s, who was serving in the East German Democratic Republic at the time, came to our end-of-the-world place. Uncle Victor, that was his name, brought my father a real man’s gift – a six-pack of German beer. In the evening, after the traditional “Do you remember…”, the beer was finally opened. If someone had told me that the smell could make our room lighter, I wouldn’t have believed it. After the first bottle was opened, the room was filled with an unusually clean smell of hops.

He literally transformed our standard apartment to a fragrant autumn garden. The room even became lighter with that crazy smell.

Probably my father was feels pity for me, and for the first time in my memory he “broke the rules” and allowed me to taste the magic elixir. Of course, it wasn’t my first beer, but I couldn’t imagine such a thing even in my wildest fantasies. Pure flavor, bitterness growing and then gradually disappearing, and yet leaving a pleasant memory.

They say that first love never dies. That’s most probably what happened to me. In love for German beer in the far 70s, I carried on this love through time. I had moved to another country and traveled a lot for work. Everywhere I tried to buy interesting and unusual beers. I enjoyed a bouquet of spices or the fruity flavor of a Belgian ale, I also admired a wonderful American beer, but in my heart I remained faithful to my first love – German beer.

German beer is not characterized by a storm of aromas and flavors. It is always stringent, laconic, and a little wordy, like a real military officer. Sometimes I would like to compare it to a naval officer at a ball. A flush of colors, magnificent outfits, charming women, and suddenly in the background of this festivity appears a captain of the Second Rank in a white uniform. He is shaved to blue, zipped up on all buttons, laconic and strict. And this is what attracts all the beauties at the ball. He’s the kind of man you could fall in love with.

And recently, on my last business trip to Moscow, I met Him. The very beer from my youth. Turns out it’s called Bogerhof. And they say there is no such thing as a time machine… “

In Anapa we brewed beer together for the “Kino shock Film Festival”, according to the participants’ reviews the beer turned out to be interesting, but I never managed to try it – during the festival I brewed beer in another place, at my native Carlsberg.

Here you can see photos and a small movie about brewing beer for the film festival, as well as admire this wonderful seaside town.