West Bank brewery battling to export its rare beer to UK

Israeli export controls, settler attacks and a struggling local economy have made business difficult for Taybeh Brewery

- ALEX CROFT

In a grainy black and white security video, three masked, club- wielding figures smash up a grey car on a residential street.

It was 7.40pm on a quiet Tuesday evening in the Christian town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, around 10 miles by road to the bustling administrative capital of Ramallah.

Nadim Khoury, the 65-year-old founder of the West Bank's first brewery situated in the town, says his family has lived there for 600 years. “There is no way that I will go anywhere,” he says undaunted, speaking the day after the car attack.

But settler attacks are just one of a number of obstacles, including Israeli export controls and a heavily damaged tourist industry, which have led to a 70 per cent collapse in sales of Taybeh beer since the Hamas-led 7 October attacks and Israel's subsequent military campaigns.

“Doing business in Palestine,” explains Nadim, “is not like doing business in any other part of the world”.

He started brewing beer in a Boston dorm room in the US in 1982 and set up the brewery with his brother, David, in 1994, located in the West Bank's only all-Christian town. It is now run by his daughter, Madees Khoury, the Middle East's only female brewmaster.