{"id":47,"date":"2010-04-12T23:14:02","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T23:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=47"},"modified":"2010-04-13T04:18:50","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T04:18:50","slug":"from-beirut-to-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2010\/04\/from-beirut-to-beer\/","title":{"rendered":"From Beirut to Beer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

BY WHITNEY EULICH<\/p>\n

One month before the birth of his first child, Steve Hindy was kidnapped by the Southern Lebanon Army (SLA). He was an Associated Press foreign correspondent covering an Irish battalion of UN Peacekeeping forces.\u00a0 This was the UN\u2019s first mission in the south of Lebanon since a clash between the SLA and UN earlier that year.<\/p>\n

Before he left for work that morning, Hindy warned his wife: \u201cYou know they frequently abduct people in the south but they always let the journalist go. If you hear I get kidnapped, just don\u2019t worry about it.\u201d Hindy laughs and nods as he remembers the story.<\/p>\n

Hindy and his photographer were released that afternoon along with one UN Peacekeeper who was tortured and shot three time, but was still alive.\u00a0 Two UN workers were killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really nasty situation,\u201d Hindy recalled during an interview at his office in Brooklyn, New York, \u201cand it definitely had an impact on me.\u00a0 I realized the story wasn\u2019t worth dying for.\u201d Not that story, nor any other one.<\/p>\n

Still, Hindy continued to put himself and his family in life-threatening situations.\u00a0 There was the time a car bomb exploded, shattering nearly every window in a Beirut hotel except the one left slightly ajar in Hindy\u2019s room.\u00a0 His newborn son was tucked in to sleep beneath that window.\u00a0 Or the day in 1981 when Hindy sat just feet away from Egyptian president Anwar Sadat when he was assassinated during a military parade.<\/p>\n

After years in the Middle East, Hindy was eager to take a transfer to Manila in 1984. He was surprised when his wife refused.<\/p>\n

\u201cEllen endured this life like a real trooper,\u201d Hindy said, but she had had enough. She told him she was taking their kids back to the US.<\/p>\n

Hindy and Ellen Foote had already divorced once. They remarried during Hindy\u2019s first year in Lebanon, and his attitude toward work changed after the birth of his first child. When shooting broke out or bombs went off Hindy, pursued news on his family\u2019s safety first, then chased the story for work.<\/p>\n

But, there was no denying his love for the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a thrill getting on an airplane and going someplace where most people are trying to get away from,\u201d Hindy said.\u00a0 \u201cI can still conjure up the feeling of flying into Tehran or taking a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad during the first days of the Iran-Iraq war.\u00a0 It\u2019s an adrenalin rush.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few foreign correspondents had both successful careers and family life.\u00a0 He decided no story was worth his marriage either, and moved back to Brooklyn with his wife and two children in 1984, where he took a job editing for Newsday Magazine.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Back in New York, Hindy stood in his family\u2019s kitchen enveloped by shards of glass.\u00a0 Foote ushered their children to the back of the apartment, but unlike similar scenes in Beirut and Cairo, this mess wasn\u2019t the result of violence.<\/p>\n

Hindy was trying out a new hobby, home beer brewing, and broke 30 of the first 48 bottles he tried to cap.<\/p>\n

By 1987 Hindy\u2019s love for brewing beer, and his dissatisfaction with his desk job at Newsday, had grown so great he decided to start a microbrewery with his downstairs neighbor Tom Potter.\u00a0 Hindy was inspired by the small breweries popping up on the west coast and knew Brooklyn had a rich history of brewing. He and Potter raised a half million dollars in seed money, and with two small children and no steady income Hindy found his new adrenaline rush.<\/p>\n

Hindy likens starting his own company to working in a war zone.\u00a0 \u201cYou never know what you\u2019re going to run into and it requires every bit of imagination you\u2019ve got,\u201d Hindy said, adjusting his wire-rim glasses.<\/p>\n

His experience working in conflicts helped Hindy keep his cool when he was robbed at gunpoint in 1995 for $30,000 from the company\u2019s safe.\u00a0\u00a0 It also helped one day when he was cornered by a group of union workers straight out of GoodFelleas<\/em>.\u00a0 The three men, each flanked by two bodyguards, wanted a cut in his beer business, implying he should put a few \u201cno show\u201d positions on the payroll of a brewery\u2019s distribution to ensure the safety of himself and his new enterprise.\u00a0 Hindy promised the men jobs in his next venture, and the men went off to discuss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was sitting there just shitting in my pants,\u201d Hindy said, \u201cand one guy comes back and puts his hand on my thigh next to my balls and says, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but we\u2019re gonna have to hurt you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man flung Hindy into the chain-link fence behind him and said, \u201cJust Kiddin\u2019! We\u2019re gonna leave you alone.\u201d\u00a0 He and his entourage turned and walked out of the warehouse.\u00a0 In 2004, two of the men were put in jail for extortion and racketeering, charges unrelated to their visit with Hindy.<\/p>\n

Today, Brooklyn Brewery is a privately held company with international distribution and annual sales close to $12 Million.\u00a0 Hindy\u2019s industrial-style office is plastered with posters of the company\u2019s retro, green curvy \u201cB\u201d logo, and decorated with trophies and plaques engraved with titles such as \u201centrepreneur of the year.\u201d\u00a0 A lone piece of shrapnel, tucked between vintage beer bottles, and his enthusiasm for storytelling, are the only evidence of Hindy\u2019s five-year stint as a correspondent in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Hindy pulled a black leather jacket embroidered with a small Brooklyn Brewery logo over his yellow collared shirt and navy fleece vest as he left his office Thursday morning.\u00a0 An open room of mostly men in their twenties and thirties called out hellos and howdies as he crossed the office, and across the street warehouse employees went out of their way to chat with him.<\/p>\n

Neither of Hindy\u2019s children were interested in taking over the Brewery, he explained, but his daughter Lily, a graduate student at Columbia University\u2019s School of International and Public Affairs, takes after his interest in the Middle East. She has studied Arabic in Damascus and Cairo, and plans to do an internship in Israel this summer. \u00a0Lily, 27, smiled as she talked about her father\u2019s ability to take risks and follow his passion without needing to be the center of attention.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s a great story teller and he loves talking to people,\u201d Lily said. \u201cBut he can be really quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hindy, starting to show patches of gray in his moustache and beard, survived five years in war zones, and managed to navigate Brooklyn\u2019s petty mobsters.\u00a0 But, in 2007 he experienced a parent\u2019s ultimate tragedy: the death of his son.\u00a0 Sam, then 27, was killed riding his bike across the Manhattan Bridge.<\/p>\n

Her brother\u2019s death \u2018turned the family upside down,\u2019 Lily said, and her father talks little about the loss that he clearly thinks about all the time.\u00a0 \u201cYou can tell he carries a weight with him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hindy is proud of his daughter, inscribing a copy of his book \u201cBeer School,\u201d published in 2005 with the message \u201cThanks for bringing the Hindys back to the Middle East.\u201d\u00a0 Though, Hindy admitted he\u2019s nervous watching Lily go to Jerusalem for an internship this summer, especially after what happened to Sam, he said, \u201cbut what can I say? Yeah, it\u2019s dangerous, but I did it.\u201d