Holy Water
12-oz Maccabee lager at Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel
L'Chaim was a young Tel Aviv photographer who showed much promise when he switched from conventional portrait photography to beer studies in the early 1980s.

With this stunning photograph, taken in the summer of 1986 in Jerusalem, L'Chaim sought to illustrate the relationship between the secular and the sacred in his native country. The beer itself is almost overwhelmed by the historical magnitude of the backdrop, consisting of the luminous Western Wall and the shining gold dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Unfortunately, L'Chaim was pummeled to death by enraged ultraorthodox extremists shortly after this picture was taken, and the beer photography movement lost one of its brightest young stars.