Christian Brewery Finds Success in the West Bank

The Taybeh brewery is the only brewery in the overwhelmingly Muslim Palestinian territories. It is located in the village of Taybeh, which is largely Christian. Economic conditions make operations difficult, including the extra costs and challenges of dealing with the checkpoints and delays that make up Israel's military occupation. And, on top of all that, they face the daunting challenge of trying to market their Palestinian beer to Israeli customers.

Located in the hills of the West Bank just east of Jerusalem, it will hold its fifth annual Oktoberfest, expecting to draw to 10,000 visitors, including tourists, but also Palestinians and Israelis!

The Taybeh brewery was begun by Nadim Khoury, a Christian, in the wake of the optimism that followed the Oslo Accords. He had left the village years before for Boston where he taught himself to brew beer at home. He returned to Taybeh in 1994 at the urging of his family.

There, unable to find a bank or aid agency to fund a Palestinian brewery, his family provided the $1.2m in funding for the brewery. "The banks and NGOs thought we were crazy to build a brewery in a Muslim country," says Khoury. "But now I think we were lucky we didn't take their money."He says that because all business in the West Bank virtually completely ceased during the second intifada, that is the Palestinian uprising that began in late 2000. While he was forced to lay off many of the brewery's workers the business survived because it had no mortgage or other debts and therefore no loans to be foreclosed upon.

Today the brewery is fully operational, producing three different lagers and, beginning this summer, a non-alcoholic beer, called Taybeh Halal, which is aimed at the young Palestinian market. In part, this is an effort to enter a new market, in part it is an insurance policy. "Just in case something happens and there is a change in the environment and political situation,"

Khourey says.Khourey is quick to note the decline of Christian population in the area. He reports having seen so many Palestinian Christians leaving for a life abroad that he says there are now more of his fellow villagers living in Michigan than in Taybeh itself.

Khoury sells his beer to restaurants in the more liberal Palestinian cities, such as Ramallah and Bethlehem, but many of the deliveries go into Jerusalem and further into Israel, to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Nazareth. This is a complicated process because of the occupation. Even though Taybeh is only a few minutes drive from Jerusalem, the beer deliveries must go through a checkpoint at near Hebron, about two hours’ drive away where the delivery trucks are searched and the beer transferred to Israeli trucks. This procedure often takes several hours , while the beer, which contains no preservatives, sits exposed to the sunlight. Khoury says "My beer is delicate. I cannot afford to have it sit in the sunlight,"

He would like to export more Taybeh beer to the Arab world but, for example, the Jordanians impose prohibitively high import duties to protect their own foreign-run beer industry.

Khourey sees signs of an improvement in the economy of the West Bank economy. "Demand has rapidly increased," says Khoury. "If there is peace and prosperity, people celebrate more." His daughter, Madees, 24, now helps him run the brewery and he expects she will take over the business some day.Khourey hopes his brewery will help to change opinions and biases.

"People don't believe that we have a product like Taybeh beer brewed in Palestine," he says. "On the news they see only violence, bombing and uprisings. Now we are trying to change this and to show the world we can live in peace with our neighbors. We are human beings. We have a right to enjoy life. Enough is enough with the fighting”