Taybeh Brewery sits overlooking the hills and olive groves of the West Bank and, with approximately 1m pints produced and shipped annually, the Middle East’s first microbrewery has become the toast of the region’s beermakers.
Behind the family-run business is Madees Khoury, a 37-year-old Palestinian woman. Taybeh’s general manager and probably the region’s only brewmaster, she is setting a precedent in a society with very few women in the workforce.
“I’ve observed that men here are often intimidated by successful and strong women like me,” Khoury says. “They want to get married and start a family, but this is not what I want. I’m independent and strong-willed and I want to move this business forward.”
While the number of working women has increased markedly across the West Bank and Gaza in the past decade, figures show that nearly 82% of Palestinian women remain outside the labour force, compared with 30% of men. And barely three in every 100 working-age women set up their own businesses, according to a Bethlehem University study.
Khoury has big plans for Taybeh Brewery – including international expansion – but since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, production has slowed down.
The brewery has not been able to obtain export permits needed for international shipping through Israeli ports, and several of Khoury’s employees have been injured in attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“We’re also just filled with grief – and even fear,” says Khoury, who has family in Gaza. She is determined to keep going, however, hoping for a more peaceful future.
“To build our state and economy, we have to invest our knowledge and money,” she says. “And that’s exactly what my family and I are doing.
Located just outside Ramallah, Palestine’s de facto capital, the brewery opened in 1994 in Taybeh – one of the West Bank’s few remaining Christian villages. Khoury’s father, Nadim, who had been brewing small batches of beer in his bedroom as a student in the US, decided to turn his hobby into a business with his brother David.
He returned to his native Taybeh with his young family after the 1993 Oslo peace accords. The brothers’ venture has since become a sophisticated family brewery that exports to 18 countries.
Khoury joined the business after university in 2007 and later took over its management. “At first, I worked in a variety of jobs; from cleaning and visiting customers to accounting and eventually management,” she says, sitting in the airy brewery surrounded by colourfully labelled bottles of beer.
Moving to the West Bank at a young age had its challenges, but Khoury adjusted quickly. “As a child, you don’t see the occupation so much. My grandfather tried to make our transition from the US easy. He built us a treehouse and a swimming pool.