Bar/fly: Ethiopia

It was lunchtime in Ethiopia so, as at each lunchtime in this ancient land, we raised our glasses in a grateful toast to George. We were not honouring a member of our group, nor even Ethiopia’s patron saint St George, but the country’s most popular beer, St George Lager.

Ethiopia proved not only to be a land with plenty of food – the fish, especially, was delicious – but also a place with lots of excellent beer. The choice included Amber, Harar, Meta Premium and Dashen, all of which I enjoyed, plus others such as Hakim, Bedele, Garden, Castel and Bati, which I didn’t manage to track down.

Ethiopia also produces several kinds of bush beer, a honey wine that is a sort of mead flavoured with local herbs, ordinary red wine and a distilled spirit notable for its ferocity. Places that sell bush beer advertise by hanging a plastic bottle out front and, judging by the number of bottles displayed on the roadside, it’s very popular.

Read more at: New Zealand Herald