2006-02-22<\/p>\n
Palestinian brewery to launch ‘Hamas’ near beer<\/p>\n
Beermaker decides to develop non-alcoholic beer brandished with label that matches
\nHamas’s trademark color.<\/p>\n
By Kerry Sheridan – TAYBEH, West Bank Like any good entrepreneur, Palestinian
\nbeermaker Nadim Khoury knew that adaptation would be key to his brewery’s survival under
\na government led by the Islamists of Hamas.<\/p>\n
So anticipating the hardliners’ rise to power in January’s general election, Khoury decided to
\ndevelop a new product – a non-alcoholic microbrew brandished with a label that coordinates
\nperfectly with Hamas’s trademark color.<\/p>\n
“I figured why not have a green label so it will match?” said Khoury, who runs the Taybeh
\nBrewing Company, the only brewery in the Palestinian territories. “All customers will notice
\nthe green for the Hamas flag.”<\/p>\n
The alcohol-free version of Taybeh beer, with a label inscribed only in Arabic and whose
\nname means “delicious,” is to be released this summer and will target the “local market,” he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Non-alcoholic beer is already popular in a number of conservative Gulf Arab countries which
\nofficially ban booze sales.<\/p>\n
The lucrative market potential was highlighted by a deal four years ago which saw Egypt’s
\nlargest brewer of “near-beer,” Al-Ahram Beverages, bought by Heineken for 280 million
\ndollars.<\/p>\n
Khoury says he will start small with his new beer, maybe only a few hundred bottles at first,
\nbut he has big dreams for his brewing factory in the hilltop village of Taybeh, a historically
\nChristian town of about 1,300 people near Ramallah in the West Bank.<\/p>\n
A sense of homeland pride and the family’s ability to invest more than one million dollars
\nspurred Nadim, who was born in Taybeh, to return after two decades in the United States in
\norder to build the brewery shortly after the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993.<\/p>\n
Now in its 11th year of business, Khoury said the brewery sells the equivalent of about 1.2
\nmillion pints per year, though its peak output was more than twice that in 2000 prior to the
\noutbreak of the second intifada against Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n
Violence was bad for business, and the intifada brought a wave of harsher regulations in
\nmany Palestinian cities.<\/p>\n
Khoury hasn’t been able to sell his beer in the Gaza Strip for years, since militants torched
\nthe home of one of his distribution outlets and radical Islamists effectively made selling
\nalcohol impossible throughout the crowded territory.<\/p>\n
But Khoury hopes attitudes will change with his new non-alcoholic beer.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to smuggle my beer in Palestine. I believe I have a right to sell mine (in the Gaza
\nStrip),” said Khoury, an unabashed nationalist who touts his beer factory as a boon to the
\nPalestinian people and their economy.<\/p>\n
“Every time we sell a bottle of beer it goes toward building the state of Palestine,” said
\nKhoury.<\/p>\n
Khoury says his first name Nadim means “your friend who sits at the bar with you, your
\ndrinking buddy,” and his chief product is Taybeh Golden beer, though he also makes a light
\nversion and a dark beer.<\/p>\n
The Taybeh brews are concocted from four natural ingredients — malted barley, hops, yeast
\nand pure spring water. Each bottle sells for around one dollar.<\/p>\n
The gentle, amber-colored Taybeh Golden is sold in parts of Israel, the West Bank, Britain
\nand Germany.<\/p>\n
However, among secular Muslims in the area who do drink alcohol, not all are devoted fans
\nof its mellow taste.<\/p>\n
“It’s okay. It’s good,” shrugged one Arab-Israeli taxi driver in Jerusalem, who admitted he
\nhadn’t drunk any Taybeh in at least two years.<\/p>\n
A waiter at a bar in occupied East Jerusalem said: “I prefer Irish whiskey. Jameson.”<\/p>\n
Hamas leaders, who now dominate parliament, have not made clear whether or not they will
\nseek to impose conservative sharia law which would impose a wider ban on alcohol.<\/p>\n
Khoury remains optimistic.<\/p>\n
“I think they (Hamas) are very smart, very educated. I believe they will think twice before they
\ndo anything to hurt our business.”<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.middle-east-online.com\/english\/?id=15816<\/p>\n
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2006-02-22 Palestinian brewery to launch ‘Hamas’ near beer Beermaker decides to develop non-alcoholic beer brandished with label that matches Hamas’s trademark color. By Kerry Sheridan – TAYBEH, West Bank Like any good entrepreneur, Palestinian beermaker Nadim Khoury knew that adaptation would be key to his brewery’s survival under a government led by the Islamists of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1401],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-5023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-hamas"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"
Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7793,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5023\/revisions\/7793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5023"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}