LEBANON'S newest microbrewery sits in the shadow of an unfinished aquarium on the shores of Batroun, a coastal town. The eco-themed brewery's garden, filled with second-hand furniture and umbrellas, is full of drinkers tasting the four beers made by Colonel. The bottled lager is already stocked in bars around Beirut, the capital. Jamil Haddad, Colonel's owner, started out making liqueurs and eventually a vodka at home. When he finally admitted to himself that he hated vodka he decided to make the leap to beer. The bronzed windsurfer was working as a marketing executive with Adidas in Lebanon at the time. Over four years he travelled around Europe learning the ropes of brewing. In the summer of 2013 he quit his job to focus on founding the brewery and a year later, in June, he started to sell the first bottles of Colonel, named after a local stretch of coastline popular with windsurfers.

Mr Haddad and his family invested $2m in the business and borrowed $400,000. Happily, the tipple is proving popular. In the first three years he expected to make 500 litres per day, half the brewhouse's capacity. But after just two months the brewery was turning out 1,000 litres each day and was already running out of stock. The company is planning to expand.

Craft beers have long been popular in Europe and America, but they are relatively new to Lebanon, where the beer market is dominated by Almaza, a brand owned by Heineken. That may be slowly changing. 961, a brewery named after Lebanon's international dialling code, produces around 1.6m litres a year, including beers flavoured with zaatar, or Lebanese thyme. A Lebanese-German man who brews Schtrunz in a 20-square-metre room, and sells only to his friends, will shortly be expanding to a 75-square-metre space. And at the end of July the Kassatly family in the Bekaa Valley, in the country's east, launched Beirut Beer. The family, who already make vodka and wine, say their aim is to rival Almaza. Mr Haddad's more modest hope is for more beer festivals and further examples of craft beer in Lebanon.