FUHEIS, Jordan—It took gumption to pour millions of dollars into starting a brewery in an overwhelmingly Muslim country where many frown on consuming alcohol.
Jordanian beer pioneer Yazan Karadsheh is now taking his next risky step, sending a first shipment of his Carakale to the U.S., where it will compete with thousands of brands in a $22 billion-a-year craft beer market.
The 32-year-old Karadsheh is part of a small but growing brotherhood of Arab brewers in the Levant who want to nurture local beer-drinking cultures and compete against the brews of large companies, some of them multi-nationals that dominate the region’s beer market.
Carakale is the first craft beer in Jordan. The West Bank already has three independent breweries—well-established veteran Taybeh, newcomer Shepherds and tiny Wise Men’s Choice, made in a basement near biblical Bethlehem. Lebanese brands include Colonel, made at a large brew pub in the coastal town of Batroun, and 961, named after the country’s international dialing code. Small breweries also sprang up in Israel over the past decade.
It’s a modest revival in a region where beer-brewing traditions go back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but lay dormant for centuries.
Demand is also up. Regional beer consumption increased by 44 percent over the past decade—though the close to 4 million hectoliters (105 million gallons) guzzled in nine Arab countries and Israel last year amount to a drop compared to U.S. consumption of 234 million hectoliters (6.1 billion gallons), according to industry figures and IWSR, an alcoholic drinks research company.
Karadsheh believes there’s room for expansion.
“Obviously, they drink,” Karadsheh, a member of Jordan’s Christian minority, said of his compatriots. “Alcohol might be taboo, but you can find alcohol and buy alcohol easily in the market. Jordan is a very liberal place, compared to surrounding countries.”
Karadsheh and other up-and-coming brewers—Shepherds founder Alaa Sayej in the West Bank and Colonel creator Jamil Haddad in Lebanon—stumbled onto their career-changing passion by chance.
