White Rabbit: A new brewery 'hops' into Israel

“We don’t consider ourselves just another ‘boutique’ or ‘craft’ brewery,” said Rotem Nardit-Butell. “You shouldn’t write that. Israel has a few dozen excellent craft breweries, but we are brewing beers of the highest international standard.”

When I heard that from the manager of the new White Rabbit Brewery in Tel Aviv, I suspected that something different was taking place there – and that I had to find out what. With a little bit of organizing, we arranged for a proper visit and tour of the brewery, which would include Magazine Editor Erica Schachne, assorted tasters, friends, and yours truly.

We were welcomed by Nardit-Butell, brewmaster Avi Shalev, and others on the marketing and sales staff. White Rabbit is located on the premises of the former Dancing Camel, which opened in 2006 as Israel’s first craft brewery. The facilities have been completely renovated, and most of the brewing equipment has been replaced.

The name “White Rabbit” comes from the title of the famous Jefferson Airplane song from the 1960s, whose lyrics hint at some interesting mind-altering substances. It’s a favorite song of the brewery’s founder and owner, Zeev Rabinovitz. We’ll get back to him later.

The White Rabbit brewery was looking forward to a grand opening in Israel in the fall of 2023, but the Hamas attack and the war put all of those plans on ice. The first three beers were released and distributed to stores and restaurants around the country, but without celebration and fanfare.

Drinking the White Rabbit beers

The beers were all India Pale Ales (IPAs), a style that is strong with hop aromas and tastes, and is best drunk fresh.

“To make sure our beers remain at their best,” said Nardit-Butell, “we have instituted what we call ‘The Cold Way.’ This means that our beers are continually kept under refrigeration, from right after the bottling, and even during the delivery to stores and restaurants. We also insist that the retail outlets that sell our beer keep it refrigerated. This may limit the number of stores carrying White Rabbit, but it ensures that our beer is always the freshest and the best it can be.”

Unique among Israeli micro-breweries, White Rabbit is also selling branded beer keg dispensers for use in the home or workplace. There are two sizes: One is egg-shaped for three-liter kegs, and the other can hold five- or 10-liter kegs. The kegs themselves are for one-time use, ensuring that the lines and fittings are always clean.

White Rabbit has also invested time and money in its branding. The labels have a unified and elegant appearance, with the logo surrounded by crisscrossing lines of gold. Only the background color for each of the three beers is different: green, blue, and black. The bottle caps are sealed in plastic.

No one likes a sealed bottle of beer, however, so it was time to try White Rabbit’s three India Pale Ales. Fortunately, I was joined by three fellow Israel Brews and Views tasters: Oded, Batya, and Bat Sheva.

The first beer we tasted was Day Dream, which is called a “lite” IPA, at 5% alcohol by volume (ABV). It pours out a semi-hazy shining golden color. We got tempting aromas of guava, mango, and passion fruit, with Oded also sensing pine.

The flavors, quite remarkably, matched the aromas. It starts out on the sweet side, said Oded, and then finishes bitter, with a grassy and earthy aftertaste. Batya compared it to “refreshing fruits” – grapefruit and apricot.

My take on Day Dream was that it’s a very mild IPA. The phrase “hop soda” came to mind. But I can’t remember tasting this combination before: strong and defined fruit flavors in a very non-aggressive IPA. The tasters were similarly impressed.

NEXT WE moved over to Feed Your Head, a New England IPA with 7% ABV. We tasters were wary because we have had quite a few Israeli NEIPAs that were not even close to what the style should be: hazy, juicy with tropical and citrus flavors, and less bitter than other IPA styles.

The beer starts out promising: very hazy with a white bubbly head. The aromas are herbal and a bit earthy – not expected in a NEIPA. The taste, however, is fruity and citrus. To me, there was unmistakable strawberry, while Bat Sheva tasted pomelo. We had trouble defining the bitter/sweet relationship. It was like this: Feed Your Head has an initial low bitterness, even sweet, as an NEIPA should be. But as you continue to drink it, the bitterness asserts itself more. Very interesting.

The third White Rabbit is called Ten Feet Tall, also at 7% ABV, and more in the West Coast style of IPA. It pours out a clear golden color, not very carbonated, with a thin white head.

I smelled grapefruit and sweet tropical fruit, perhaps mango and guava like Day Dream, and some caramel. The flavors include more citrus and tropical fruits from the hops: bitter, but not aggressive. I was impressed with the balance. Similar to Feed Your Head, the first sips bring the sharp sweetness of fruit, and then the IPA bitterness.

The bitterness never overpowers the fruit flavors (a recurring problem in IPAs) but is just enough to keep you wanting more. This is the kind of IPA that I admire.

The tasters agreed that these three IPAs were a wonderful start for White Rabbit.

TO FIND out more about the brewery and its raison d’etre, I had to speak to its founder, funder, and owner.

Zeev Rabinovitz was a businessman who made his mark and money in security devices and silicone. About five years ago, like so many others before him, he began to home-brew as a hobby and was soon ensnared. Being who he is, he began to take it much more seriously, first traveling to England to study brewing, and then taking on Avi Shalev as a consultant to explore the possibility of brewing professionally.

“We first tried contract brewing in existing breweries,” explained Rabinovitz, “but we quickly realized that we could not achieve the results we wanted in this way. We needed our own facility.”

They acquired the Dancing Camel Brewery, cleaning it out, rebuilding and adding new equipment. “We thought it would take three months; it took a year,” he sighed.

Rabinovitz emphasized that White Rabbit will not compromise on quality. “We cannot ‘afford’ otherwise,” he said. “We are taste testing all the time. When we brewed a batch of 2,000 liters that wasn’t up to our standards, we didn’t market it. Avi and I see this as basic.”

White Rabbit has already participated in beer festivals in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but has no plans to open an adjacent brewpub, as so many other micro-breweries have done. “We want to stay focused on building our production and marketing system first,” explained the beer aficionado and entrepreneur. “Only then will we consider these other steps.”

However, Rabinovitz added that there are plans for the brewery to introduce additional core beers, not only IPAs, and to explore the possibility of barrel-aging some of their brews.

“But even with these new plans,” he concluded, “White Rabbit will maintain our standards and stay true to our slogan: A New Beer Story.”

Just don’t call it “craft beer.”

The writer is the owner of MediawiSe, an agency for advertising and direct marketing in Jerusalem. He writes a web log on Israeli craft beers called ‘Israel Brews and Views,’ which can be found on Facebook.