In Brooklyn, New York, Zahra Tabatabai brews her own beer and, in doing so, is continuing an ancient tradition. While many countries have proud histories of brewing beer, the practice is much older than most people realize. Fermenting ale-style beer began about 5,000 years ago in the Middle East, a region no longer associated with brewing.
On a tiny gas stove, Tabatabai recreated beer recipes her late grandfather used in the family's homeland, Iran. She got the inspiration from her grandmother. "She said she missed the taste of my grandfather's beer," Tabatabai told The Washington Post. "I thought I was a pretty good chef; brewing can't be that hard."
As it turned out, it was very hard, particularly since Tabatabai, 40, had to reconstruct the recipes based on her family's fading memories. She also had to build a business from nothing, including manufacturing, packaging and distribution.
Exotic flavors
Tabatabai's family left Iran just before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, she learned to cook with Iranian ingredients, like sumac, barberry and Persian blue salt. Making ab jo — the Persian (Farsi) word for "beer" — would be an entirely new challenge. With a home-brewing kit, some advice from a local home-brew shop and lots of YouTube tutorials, Tabatabai got to work through trial and error, sending bottles back to Atlanta for approval. Once she felt she'd got the recipes right, she decided to open her own microbrewery, Back Home Beer.
Tabatabai felt there was space in the market for her ab jo, since most American-made beers are ultimately just variations on the European brewing tradition. "It was really important for me to share our culture and bring something new to beer," Tabatabai says. "I wanted to bring a new flavor and twist with ingredients that are popular flavor profiles in our cuisine."
Brewing success
According to the Brewers' Association, small and independent brewers make up about 13 percent of America's $100 billion beer market, by volume. However, fewer than a quarter of brewing businesses are owned by a woman — far fewer still by a woman of color. Tabatabai and others like her are changing what has long been a white-male-dominated industry.
After just over a year, Back Home Beer is available in more than 200 bars and eateries around New York and in Washington, D.C. Now, Tabatabai is looking for investors to expand production and distribution. She still delivers a lot of the beer herself, with up to 50 cases squeezed into her car.
She hopes her beer will, one day, be sold in the southeast, where her family lives. And she wants her own brewing space "where there would be Persian street food. It'd be a place for people who might feel out of place at another brewery. That's the dream."