Taybeh Dark and Remembering
November 13, 2006
As I was writing about hookahs last month, I began to think about one of the other things that I miss about Palestine. Taybeh Dark. It really is an absolutely amazing beer. We’ve been drinking some good Jamaican Red Stripe around the Walker Cleaveland home recently, which I really like.
But…it’s nothing compared to Taybeh Dark. Has anyone else ever had it? The Light isn’t bad, but it’s really the Dark that is just heavenly.
During the summer of 2005 when I was in Palestine, we would often end our evenings at al-Hema (The Tent), an open-air Bedouin-styled restaurant just outside of Bethlehem in Beit Sahour. We would get barbecue, hookahs (two apples was always the best) and Taybeh Dark and sit around with either our group or a group of Palestinians we hung out with and enjoy our evenings.
You can read a little about the Taybeh Brewing Company here (though it’s an older article, written during the Palestinian Intifada of 2002).
I am excited for when I can return to Palestine (with Sarah this time) and get out to Taybeh. It’s funny how sometimes it takes things like hookahs and beer to help us remember…but it makes sense - those very tangible things like sounds and smells and tastes that make a place that feels so far away seem so real and close. It’s always amazing to me how a far-off place can find such a way into one’s heart, after only spending a few months there. It is a place that I need to pray for much more than I do, a place filled with great friends (Wasim, Rami, Georgette, Saliba, Nidal and so many others), a place filled with so much sorrow and grief - but a place filled with so much beauty.
Thanks Taybeh, for the good times and the chance to remember…
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
November 14th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Come on Adam, refer to Palestine as Israel. Palestine isn’t even a country but a territory. You not referencing Israel implies that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist as a nation. To that I say hogwash.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
I feel the same way about Guinness in Ireland there is just something about the environment in which you partake in.
November 14th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Yeah, I used to live in Peru. When I think back on my time there, I always remember with fondness “Pilsen Trujillo”, the only beer available at the time. It wasn’t very good, and it was impossible to find a bar that served them cold, but I still think back with fondness at the nights when I would enjoy some of them with friends. I think you are right…sometimes these tangible memories are exactly what we need to have in order to recall with fondness various points of our lives. (Now, I just need to think of tangible memories that will allow me to remember Princeton with fondness in the future….maybe the beer sampler at Triumph?)
November 14th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Amen on the Red Stripe. The only place that I can find it though is at Trader Joe’s. Myself, I prefer Franzischkaner Hefewiezen. Best beer ever. First had it in Munich and never looked back. A nice slice of lemon puts it over the top. Ever read “Drinking with Calvin and Luther”? Great quotes regarding their love of beer and spirits.
November 15th, 2006 at 5:34 am
“Thanks Taybeh, for the good times and the chance to remember…”
I feel like I need a shower.