IT might raise eyebrows for some here in Malaysia to note that a woman is running a brewery in Palestine for the annual Oktoberfest festival this weekend.
Heads might also turn when they realise that Madees Khoury, in fact, heads a beer dynasty that has turned the small Christian village of Taybeh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank into a global beer brand.
Since it opened its doors to the public in 1994, her family’s brewery has operated under challenging circumstances.
Now there is an added layer of complication for Khoury, who believes she is the first and possibly only female brewer in the Middle East.
In an interview with AFP, Khoury said women in the beer industry have it hard given that the field is mainly dominated by men.
To make matters worse, Palestine is under occupation, making access to water and moving around difficult, a challenge that is heightened because there are no borders.
“I think I have it extra difficult being in a male-dominated country, an Arab country and under occupation – it’s four or five times harder than for anywhere else,” she said.
In explaining how she became resilient, she noted: “In order to build a state of Palestine, we have to invest our own money, education and hard work into the country by opening businesses ourselves (and) not relying on foreign aid that might be cut off at any minute.”
“Grew to love the business”
Khoury never expected to end up taking over the family business. When she was younger, she used to run around making all kinds of trouble, just like any other child – the only difference being that she was running around huge vats of beer instead.
“I just watched my father and uncle build a business and I grew to love it,” she said.
Khoury eventually studied abroad. After graduating from a university in Boston, US, she returned to Taybeh to study the family business.
She eventually climbed up the ladder to become the company’s operations manager as well as the face of the much-awaited Oktoberfest, which was launched in town in 2005.
Oktoberfest in Taybeh is running as a two-day event over Friday and Saturday (Sept 9 and 10). According to organisers, up to 16,000 people are anticipated to attend this weekend’s festivities.
“This beer has made our village known across the world,” remarked Taybeh resident Bassam Baseem to AFP.
The Khourys were always destined to sell abroad owing to the fact that there are only nine Christian towns and villages on the West Bank.
The brand is now distributed all over the world, from Japan to the US, with the brewery producing over 1.8 mil bottles each year. – Sept 4, 2022
Main photo credit: Flickr
