OnTap Magazine

makes it super expensive, but we still buy the best quality ingredients we can find.” Ask any brewer in South Africa and you will have a similar response about the cost of imported ingredients, perhaps with a similar soft frustration about the delays at our ports and how that affects the final cost on producing high-quality beer. To put all of this into context, it is worth noting that Palestinians in the West Bank consider themselves a liberal Arabic country. The population figures are around 85% Muslim, with an estimate of between 1 and 2% being Christians. This of course matters only in as much as to answer my own question, which is who Taybeh markets their beer to? Madees keenly points out that their beers are enjoyed by ex-pats, moderate Muslims and the “good people” of Taybeh. There is nothing preventing the brewery from selling their beer to the whole population, but there is a sense of mutual respect and as such, they only sell into the more liberal nine cities in West Bank, to avoid causing offence to communities where alcohol is strictly prohibited. Obviously, this limits the domestic market and thus, they turn their eyes outward and export many of their beers. You can find Taybeh Brewing Company beers in cities like Barcelona and London, to mention a few. The challenges of exporting beer “We export through Israeli ports, which is subject to inspections and special rules,” Madees Explains. Such rules include the way in which trucks must be packed, beer types may not be mixed, nor the truck covered. There are check-points and repeated requirements of certificates to ensure that the trucks can continue to the next stage and eventually to the port. These ports are located on the Mediterranean around two hours’ drive away, but the journey takes between one and three days to complete due to all the red tape and additional controls on Palestinian goods. In spite of this, these challenges of political making, the company is viable. Master Brewer, Canaan N Khoury, brews small batch beers for the tap room, which includes interesting inventions like the “Taybeh Lemon Sitti Gose,” a sour beer brewed with lemon and Dead Sea salt. (Small batch brewing at the Taybeh brewery is around 2000 litres.) In 2021 they released their Brewmaster’s Series, which showcases local flavours with beers containing ingredients such as sage, thyme and sumac. This was also the year that they first started exporting to Jordan. In addition to the special releases, the core range has also expanded from the humble Golden Palestinian Lager, to one that contains a range consisting of a dark lager (Madees’ self-confessed guilty pleasure and all-year-beer), märzen, witbier, IPA and their newly developed non-alcoholic beer. They also have their beer available at the Golden Hotel in the heart of the village. Since 2005, they have hosted an annual Oktoberfest, which massively boosts the local economy through an influx of tourists to the area. There is an energy, a burning sense of breathtaking perseverance to Madees’ storytelling. They might have challenges, but these challenges pale in comparison to the passion that drives her and the team; “We often have a beer at the end of a tough day,” Madees reflects with a soft exhalation of laughter, the positivity always surfacing above the frustrations, like foam on a quality beer. She concludes our interview with a message perhaps a lot of our small breweries in any tough climate should hear: “We will continue to import our ingredients and export our product, because it is important to keep going, even when things are difficult. We will continue to produce a high-quality product, because it is an advert of Palestine.” Hopefully in the future we will be able to get hold of Taybeh Brewing Company’s range of beers down at the tip of Africa, but in the meantime, next time you open a craft beer, think of all the passion that goes into producing that beer and how the thread of this passion runs through all the world of craft beer producers. 34 | Autumn 2024 | ontapmag.co.za