Ethiopian Beers

Ethiopia was an Italian colony for a number of years, and is in a region where British and German colonists were also active. Although there is a large Muslim population now, the main religion is the christianity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. So, there is no general prohibition on alcohol. There are a number of breweries in Ethiopia. All the beers (regular European lagers using real hops) seem to be about 4 or 5 per cent alcohol. As well as the lagers, there is a stout widely advertised, but although we asked many times, nowhere seemed to actually sell it.

St George Beer is the most popular beer in Ethiopia. It was the sweetest of the beers. We liked Harar Beer a lot: it was light but flavoursome, while Dashen Beer was midway between St George and Harar. Bedele Special was also good, and Castel similar to St George.

Unrefrigerated trucks can be seen on the roads of Ethiopia delivering the bottled beers. We thought the thorn trees attached to the backs of the trucks might be a kind of decoration, but it turned out that it is a defence against ne'er-do-wells climbing up and snaffling a few bottles from the driver's blind spot while the truck is going slow.