It's Stella - but not as you know it...

Managing Director Jez Lamb is currently on holiday in Egypt but hasn’t switched off and has been doing a little bit of beer tasting whilst away.

Presented with a beer called “Stella” you’d be thinking it was the popular European brew found closer to home but this tipple is the local beer from the Al Ahram Beverage Company that has been served for 120 years.

Described by the brewery as having “... a clean and fresh aftertaste, Stella is simply the refreshing, easy to drink beer for all occasions.”, after drinking it for a week and a half, did that description match up to Jez’s experience?

“When I’m away, first and foremost I’m after something that’s going to quench my thirst and in all fairness to Stella, it does that and is definitely is an ‘easy to drink beer’. It pours a straw yellow colour with a small white head, there’s a light hop & malt aroma with hints of bitterness to finish. The closest I can liken it to from the ‘mainstream’ market is Budweiser. My only complaint for a holiday beer is the barman has no idea how to pour it!”

As we like to do, we’ve delved a little further into the background to this beer and the brewery and found out that Al-Ahram Brewing Company is a government conglomerate that also publishes the most widely-read newspaper in Egypt. Stella is macrobrewed by young men doing their government service, and therefore varies widely from batch to batch. You never really know which kind of Stella you're going to get!!! Whilst Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country, those that do drink tend to favour beer as it is deemed the drink of the ‘working class’ and dates back to the predynastic period (around 3100 BC) and was a staple part of their diet.

So there you have it, a little insight into Stella and beer in Egypt, but will it make it into our range? We’ll have to see how the next few days in the blistering heat pan out.