RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — A pungent fug of malt and yeastiness hangs over Murree Brewery, Pakistan ’s greatest and oldest producer of alcoholic drinks.
The corporate is an outlier in a rustic the place alcohol is outlawed for everybody besides non-Muslims, who make up some 9 million folks out of 241 million. Pakistan, an Islamic republic, banned booze for Muslims within the Nineteen Seventies.
Murree Brewery has robust financials regardless of the prohibition, due to its historical past, scant competitors and a small, thirsty and predominantly elite client base.
However the authorities exerts important management over the sale and advertising and marketing of alcoholic drinks by way of purple tape and excessive taxes, pushing brewery chairman Isphanyar Bandhara to broaden the corporate’s footprint in Pakistan’s non-alcoholic drinks business, which, though greater, is extra crowded and fewer profitable.
“Even I inform my employees of about 2,200 that we can’t sit on our laurels by promoting alcohol,” stated Bandhara, the third technology of his household to run the 165-year-old enterprise that was based by the British. “It’s a restricted market, so we’ve got to rely and focus extra on the non-alcoholic aspect. That’s the place I believe I want to flex my muscular tissues and take credit score, moderately than being a liquor baron.”
The brewery already manufactures vitality drinks, juices and malted drinks, however they don’t seem to be as effectively often known as merchandise from large worldwide manufacturers. Nonetheless, this a part of the enterprise is registering double-digit development, and Bandhara needs to money in on the nation’s youth bulge. Round 64% of the inhabitants is underneath 30.
Pakistan’s authorities determines the brewery’s alcohol costs, factors of sale and buyer base. Final yr it took $35 million from the brewery’s income in taxes. The corporate can’t promote its alcoholic drinks or broaden that a part of the enterprise inside Pakistan. On-line purchasing is unavailable.
The brewery is permitted to export beer to international locations exterior the Group of Islamic Cooperation, a 57-member bloc, although there’s a “large demand for liquor and beer” in Muslim-majority international locations, Bandhara stated.
In the meantime, extra Pakistanis drink much more sodas and juices, with billions of {dollars} in gross sales yearly. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola dominate, however there are additionally homegrown manufacturers.
“The multinationals are thriving in Pakistan,” Bandhara stated. “It’s a rewarding market. There is likely to be much less cash (in non-alcoholic drinks), nevertheless it’s safer.”
Murree Brewery’s malted drinks line is packaged in a means that strongly resembles its beery counterparts. The style, whereas not disagreeable, is distinctive, candy and barely yeasty.
Alcohol is a distinct segment merchandise in Pakistan. Even cooking substances like purple wine vinegar, and shopping for necessities like cough drugs, is tough due to their alcohol content material, nevertheless minuscule.
5-star resorts slip a drinks record into the in-room eating menu or decant alcohol right into a extra discreet vessel, like a teapot. Some eating places, normally upscale, enable diners to deliver a bottle however seat them away from others or defend the pour from prying eyes. There may be typically a windowless, joyless bar in main Pakistani cities.
Non-Muslims — nationals and foreigners — can get a liquor allow permitting them to purchase restricted quantities of alcohol. Diplomats and the elite are a wealthy supply of booze, with well-stocked cupboards and generally whole rooms devoted to drinks.
There are additionally wine outlets, however solely in some provinces and run by non-Muslims. Some wine outlets ship to prospects ready of their automobiles, for discretion. House supply can also be obtainable.
“It’s not costly to purchase beer,” stated Faisal, a Pakistani Muslim drinker who’s in his 30s and lives within the province of Sindh. He solely gave his first identify as a result of he’s breaking the regulation. “An area beer will value 500 rupees ($1.76), however it can save you 50 rupees in the event you don’t need it chilled.”
He added: “Beer is cheaper than espresso in Pakistan, however you solely want one espresso whereas you want a number of beer.”
Non-sanctioned alcohol ingesting in Pakistan is punishable by 80 lashes of a whip, though the Federal Shariat Court docket deemed the penalty un-Islamic in a 2009 ruling.
Alcohol is taken into account haram, or forbidden, in Islam. Though a sin and never a criminal offense, students and non secular authorities usually level to a verse within the Quran that calls intoxicants “the work of Devil” and tells believers to keep away from them. Additionally they cite sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and the results of alcohol.
Nonetheless, stacked on pallets at Murree Brewery on a latest day had been packing containers of booze. The beer was heading to government-authorized retailer Pearl Continental Lodge within the jap metropolis of Lahore. The whiskey was going to Sindh, dwelling to spiritual minorities together with Hindus and Parsis.
Bandhara, who’s Parsi, is without doubt one of the brewery’s main tasters. Solely non-Muslims can pattern the corporate’s alcoholic merchandise.
“We are able to’t simply drive somebody to drink an inferior drink, so it must be high quality,” Bandhara stated. “If the German Embassy, the Chinese language Embassy and a number of European embassies are my prospects for beer, I’m snug on my high quality.”
Lots of of Pakistani distilleries produce the intoxicating agent ethanol, which is generally exported. House brewers are one other supply of alcoholic drinks. However do-it-yourself liquor containing toxic methanol has proved deadly, and dozens of individuals have died over time.
Murree Brewery’s closest competitors for alcohol is the Chinese language-run Hui Coastal Brewery and Distillery Restricted, which started making beer in southwestern Balochistan in 2021, largely for the hundreds of Chinese language staff there.
No one from Hui was obtainable to remark.
The granting of a licence to Hui in conservative Balochistan took Bandhara aback. He stated he was unafraid of competitors however wished a stage taking part in subject.
Many years in the past, his household wished to arrange a brewery in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province. Bandhara stated authorities informed the household to maintain their heads down as a result of they had been in a Muslim nation.
“If the Islamic lecture is for me, why was the license given to the Chinese language brewery?” he requested. “We’re a liquor firm, and we’re the best to throw stones at and to criticize.”