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I run Palestine’s first brewery in the West Bank – this is what it’s like

A store in the village of Taybeh where the Palestinian beer is being sold (Picture: Taybeh Brewing Co)

Across the street from her home in Ramallah, Madees Khoury runs Taybeh Brewing Company, a microbrewery that her father, Nadim, opened more than 30 years ago.

At the age of 39, she is the West Bank (and the Middle East’s) only female brewmaster, carrying forward his dream of making craft beer for his Palestinian Christian community in the Taybeh with the blessing of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority’s first president.

For the past two years, she has faced her hardest test — an intensifying Israeli occupation that has made every shipment of water, grain, and bottles to the community almost impossible.

Over the past four months in particular, Ramallah has faced increasing attacks from settlers.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in July two Palestinians were shot dead and dozens were left injured after settler attacks on the outskirts of Sinjil and Al Mazra’a ash Sharqiya towns.

It’s one of many attacks that took place over the summer.

Madees in the brewery — Madees has been informally working in the brewery since the age of nine (Picture: Taybeh Brewing Co)

‘They set fire to cars in the middle of the night, next to the church ruins from the 5th century,’ Madees told Metro.

‘They paint graffiti on houses, attack water pipes for no reason. One man from a nearby Israeli settlement comes on his horse – armed with an M16 assault rifle – and just walks through town to scare us.’

On Thursday, Israel shut the only crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and neighbouring Jordan, stopping more than two million Palestinians from accessing the outside world.

‘Imagine not being able to get out of your neighborhood,’ Madees said.

Like many Palestinians, Madees feels there is nothing she can do to defend herself.

Nadim Khoury who launched the brewery in 1994 with his brother (Picture: Taybeh Brewing Co)

Since 1967, when Israel launched its occupation in the West Bank, Israeli military authorities consolidated complete power over all water resources and water-related infrastructure.

This worsened in recent months, with Amnesty International stating that mass-starvation and dehydration is spreading across Gaza.

‘Even the Internet is not in our control. We still have 3G in Palestine as the Israelis won’t allow Palestinians to have 5G,’ Madees said.

The brewery has struggled with obtaining export permits needed for international shipping through Israeli ports. But Madees hasn’t let this stop her.

In August, the Taybeh Brewing Co announced it would be teaming up with Brewgooder to produce and distribute a new lager in the UK.

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Sun & Stone lager, which is brewed in Scotland, has been distributed among 1,600 Co-op supermarkets, with all profits going to aid Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Madees’ family could have opened a brewery in the US, where her father and her uncle studied, but they chose to keep the beer ‘100% Palestinian’ to carry the ‘resistance, resilience, love, passion, sweat, tears, blood’ of people in the West Bank.

The brewery opened right after the 1993 Oslo Accords, a pair of interim agreements that promised to bring about Palestinian self-determination, in the form of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

‘My grandfather told my father and my uncle, David, “You know, we don’t have a brewery in Palestine, why not open one?”‘ Madees said.

A Palestinian man walks towards Israeli soldiers during a raid at the Balata refugee camp east of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank on August 11, 2025. Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has surged throughout the Gaza war that began in October 2023. At least 968 Palestinians, including militants but also civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the Gaza war broke out. (Photo by Jaafar ASHTIYEH / AFP) (Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images) — A Palestinian man walks towards Israeli soldiers during a raid at the Balata refugee camp east of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank on August 11, 2025 (Picture: PA)

‘They challenged him, saying that if he can get them permits and licences, they will move back.

‘Immediately my grandfather got the land, built the building, got the permits and even the blessing from Yasser Arafat at that time. That is how it all started.

‘My father then named the beer Taybeh because he is proud to be from the village of Taybeh.

‘He even keeps a picture of the family tree, which goes back 600 years, on his home.’

Madees grew up in the brewery. From the age of nine, she watched her father and her uncle run the business; her childhood memories pinpricked by recollections of Israeli checkpoints and security installations being planted in her hometown.

TULKARM, WEST BANK - SEPTEMBER 10: A view from the area after Israeli forces carried out a raid on the village of Kafr Abush, located south of the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, on September 10, 2025. Israeli soldiers surrounded a three-story house in the center of the village belonging to the family of Abdullah and Abdurrahman Zafir, who are currently held in Israeli prisons. The soldiers forcibly removed the occupants from the house and then planted explosives in the apartment on the third floor, subsequently blowing it up. The Israeli army also demolished the home of the family of Mohammed Dera'ameh in the city of Tubas in West Bank. Dera'ameh had previously been killed by Israeli forces. (Photo by Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu via Getty Images) — Aftermath of an Israeli raid on the village of Kafr Abush, located south of the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, on September 10, 2025 (Picture: Getty)

Her family was among the few that stayed during the Second Intifada – a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its occupation that began in September 2000 – and continued to run the business ‘regardless of how difficult it was.’

She briefly left to study in Boston, but later returned after graduation and moved back to Taybeh to work with her family full-time.

Just as her father did, Madees sees the brewery as a symbol.

‘It is a message to the whole world that Palestinians are like anyone else – we do drink beer, we do make beer, we do work and try to live normal lives,’ she said.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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