Israeli settlers threaten Taybeh brewery, Middle East's first microbrewery

The pressure around Taybeh Brewing Company turned physical when settlers took control of a cement factory and quarry on the village’s western outskirts and raised an Israeli flag over the site. For Taybeh, the Middle East’s first microbrewery, the takeover landed in the same landscape where the Khoury family has brewed since 1994 and where the company has long sold itself as more than a business: a symbol of Palestinian craft, continuity and survival.

Founded by brothers Nadim and David Khoury after the Oslo Accords and with Yasser Arafat’s blessing, Taybeh Brewing Company is widely described as Palestine’s first brewery and the first microbrewery in the Middle East. That legacy now sits in a village of roughly 1,300 to 1,500 people that is widely described as the West Bank’s last fully Christian town. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem says Taybeh is the only Christian village in Palestine with a 100% Christian population, and the Khoury family’s ties to the village reportedly stretch back 600 years.

The threat is not limited to land. Taybeh says its water supply has been cut back to one day a week after attacks on springs and other infrastructure, a crippling blow for a brewery that depends on reliable water for production, cleaning and packaging. The company has also faced checkpoint delays, customs restrictions and rising operating costs, while local reporting says the village has been surrounded by six settler outposts since 2025. For a brewery that built part of its reputation on Oktoberfest tourism and on putting Taybeh on the map, the pressure now reaches straight into the taproom economy.

Madees Khoury, Nadim’s daughter, joined the family business full-time in 2007 and is described as the first and only female brewmaster in the Middle East. By September 2025, she said Taybeh’s beer reached 17 countries across Europe, Asia and North America, but the company’s export route has become harder to sustain. To keep the brand moving, Taybeh partnered with Brewgooder to make Taybeh-branded lager in Scotland, while Co-op said it would stock the beer in 1,600 UK stores.

The wider scene in Taybeh has grown harsher. Vatican News reported that settlers also entered the quarry and concrete plant on March 19, 2026, while residents said they have seen fires near the fifth-century ruins of St. George Church, damaged olive groves and stolen livestock. Father Bashar Fawadleh, the village’s Latin parish priest, said the latest moves shifted the pressure from the east to the west and put key economic infrastructure at risk. In a town where brewing, tourism and daily life are tied to the same fragile ground, the question is no longer growth. It is whether this pioneering beer tradition can keep running at all.