Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Israel News

Palestinian Oktoberfest Offers the West Bank in a Beer Glass

Taybeh, a Christian village in the West Bank, celebrated its 11th Oktoberfest on the September 24 and 25. The event, which draws thousands of Palestinians and foreigners every year, is a unique occurrence in the Palestinian Territories, where most Muslims eschew alcohol. Here’s a primer on the West Bank beer festival:

The festival is sponsored by the Taybeh Brewing Company, which was started in 1994 by Palestinian businessman Nadim Khoury as a way to build the Palestinian economy in the optimistic period after the Oslo Accords.

Taybeh’s beers, which come in six styles, are sipped in bars in the West Bank, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Several bars in Israel — most with a left-leaning Jewish and Arab clientele — also serve Taybeh.

Canaan Khoury, the brewer and engineer at Taybeh Brewing Company Image by Naomi Zeveloff

The festival was originally held in the village center, but in recent years village officials have deemed the event too raucous to be held in the public square. This year Oktoberfest was held in the pavilion near the Khoury family home and factory.

A performance at Oktoberfest. Image by Naomi Zeveloff

The 2016 festival included vendors who sold locally-made honey, puppets and Palestinian embroidery. There was also chicken and beef shawarma, falafel and Beit Jala-made pork sausages, another West Bank rarity. There were also jugglers, dancers and hip hop artists, and a miniature climbing wall.

A dancer at Oktoberfest. Image by Naomi Zeveloff

Taybeh buys malt from Belgium and bottles from Portugal. Because Israel controls the West Bank borders, the products can face delays depending on the political situation. Canaan Khoury, the son of Nadim Khoury and the company’s engineer, began a winery with the mission of creating a completely locally-sourced product in order to sidestep Israeli restrictions. He named the wine line Nadim, after his father.

A makeshift climbing wall at Oktoberfest. Image by Naomi Zeveloff

Both Canaan and Nadim Khoury studied brewing at the University of California, Davis with legendary brewmaster Michael Lewis.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected] or on Twitter @naomizeveloff

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.