Beer in Turkey

For years, visitors to Turkey basically had one choice when ordering beer: Efes. These days, international brands are also brewed locally, and imports like Guinness, Leffe, Corona, and Heineken are available, too, though they are often very pricey. A handful of bars, including The United Pub in Beşiktaş and Zeplin Pub in Kadıköy pride themselves on having a broader-than-usual selection. Efes itself has branched out and now makes several different brews (including Efes Dark and Efes Light), and also brews the somewhat maltier Bomonti—Turkey’s first beer, recently revived as a nostalgic brand. But if you want to drink local, look for Gara Güzü, a small new Muğla-based label that's making a splash despite its (so far) limited distribution; it only makes two kinds of beers, a blonde ale and an amber one, but they're both very good. Istanbul is also home to two brewpubs, the Bosphorus Brewing Company in the Gayrettepe district and the frankly inferior Taps on the Bosphorus, just north of Bebek.