RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Inside Murree Brewery’s factory, green-and-red cans move down a conveyor belt to get filled with frothy golden beer. Every month, more than 1 million cans are produced in the company’s industrial brick buildings in this city near Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, and are prepared for distribution around the country.
Alcohol is banned for Pakistan’s Muslim majority, but is still consumed. Murree Brewery has operated within this paradox for decades. It’s the oldest and best-known brewery in the country — founded in the 19th century by the British during their colonial rule of India and acquired by a family in Pakistan in 1947, the year the new country was created through India’s partition. Now, after a nearly 50-year export ban, Murree is shipping beer overseas again.
Though little-known outside South Asia, the company is a household name in Pakistan, says Ali Akbar Khan, author of Rawul Pindee: The Raj Years, which chronicles the brewery’s history. “It’s a landmark,” he says.
The brewery survived a prohibition imposed in 1977 by then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and tightened by the military dictator who overthrew him, Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who imposed lashing as punishment for drinking alcohol. There were exceptions for sales to non-Muslims and foreigners, and Murree Brewery was allowed to continue operating in Pakistan — but not to resume exporting alcoholic products as it had before the 1977 ban.
“The theory behind the export ban was that an Islamic country should not be seen as exporting a vice,” says Murree Brewery’s CEO Isphanyar Bhandara, whose grandfather acquired the brewery in 1947.
His family is part of the country’s tiny Parsi minority, the descendants of Persian Zoroastrians — a significant factor in their ability to operate a successful brewery in an Islamic republic for three generations.
The country’s minority groups — including Hindus and Christians — are allowed to purchase limited amounts of alcohol with official permits. Alcoholic beverages also find their way to Muslims who acquire them through countrywide bootlegging networks and informal liquor shops in the southern province of Sindh.
Bhandara’s father, Minocher Bhandara, who held a seat in Pakistan’s parliament and served as minority affairs adviser to Zia, lobbied the government for years for permission for Murree Brewery to export. Isphanyar Bhandara did the same when he took over the business after his father’s death in 2008. (He too serves as a member of parliament). The brewery, for a short time in the early 2000s, entered partnerships with breweries that produced Murree-branded beer in Austria and the Czech Republic, and discussed a similar setup with a brewery in India around the same time, but that deal didn’t materialize.
Before the export ban, Murree Brewery shipped its alcohol to countries including India, the United States and even Afghanistan. But it wasn’t until last year that the company again got the green light to directly send products abroad, after a 2022 change to Pakistan’s export policy allowing alcohol exports to countries that are not part of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of 57 nations with significant Muslim populations.
The long-awaited string of government approvals that followed were met with cautious optimism at Murree Brewery.
“Initially, we were not confident that all of the things will go smooth,” says Ramiz Shah, the company’s export manager.
But so far, so good. The brewery sent its first shipment of beer — to the United Kingdom — last spring to test out the export process, and then made exports to Portugal and Japan. It is now looking to expand its international sales to other markets, including the United States and Canada.
Bhandara credits the government’s change of heart on exports to economics: Pakistan can collect much-needed revenue from these overseas deals. “The government benefits if we export,” Bhandara explains.
There are only around 9 million non-Muslims in Pakistan — less than 4% of a population of some 250 million — creating serious domestic market limitations for a producer of alcohol.
Murree Brewery expanded its offerings over the years to include non-alcoholic drinks, including juices, bottled water and fruit-flavored malt drinks — some of which are exported. Shah, the export manager, says the first distributors in the U.K. and Japan to buy Murree’s beer were already importing some of the company’s non-alcoholic options. Since 2020, Murree Brewery has exported alcohol-free products to more than a dozen countries around the world. Shah says relationships with these distributors open a window for possible beer sales, too: “They are easy to target because they know us.”
Murree Brewery now has some competition locally from the Chinese-run Hui Coastal Brewery and distillery, which started production in Pakistan’s Balochistan province in 2021. But Murree still managed its best year on record in 2025, surpassing $100 million in annual revenue.
Khan, the author, credits this success to the strategy and foresight of the Bhandara family over the years. “They’re very shrewd businessmen and I think it was a business deal of a lifetime,” he says of their acquisition of the brewery after India’s partition.
For now, the brewery doesn’t have to crank up production to fulfill export demands. Bhandara is hoping that might change, though he remains keenly aware of his context.
“We were always brought up with this concept: not to expand the brewery, not to increase the capacity. Keep your head down. There is an Islamic country,” he says. “We don’t want to be seen as flexing our muscles while producing liquor… That is something we don’t do.”
Transcript:
MILES PARKS, HOST:
There’s an iconic brewery in Pakistan that’s been operating for generations, even though it’s illegal for the country’s Muslim majority to drink. It’s called Murree Brewery. And this year, the brewery got the green light to export its beer for the first time in decades. Betsy Joles tells us more from Rawalpindi.
BETSY JOLES, BYLINE: Outside the Murree Brewery factory in the city of Rawalpindi, forklifts carry cardboard boxes of beer ready for distribution.
(SOUNDBITE OF FORKLIFT RUNNING)
JOLES: The industrial buildings here are made from red brick, and there’s a sign on one of them with the date of the brewery’s founding, 1860. Historian Ali Akbar Khan says the Brewery’s longevity has made it a household name in Pakistan, even among nondrinkers.
ALI AKBAR KHAN: Murree Brewery, it’s a landmark.
JOLES: The business started before Pakistan even existed, when the British ruled the Indian subcontinent and started brewing beer in the Murree Hills. After partition in 1947, the brewery continued operating under the leadership of the Bhandara family, which still runs it today. But the beer business in Pakistan hasn’t exactly been straightforward. Alcohol was initially banned in 1977 by then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in response to conservative politics. And politics brought an end to alcohol exports too.
ISPHANYAR BHANDARA: The theory behind the export ban was that an Islamic country should not be seen as exporting a vice.
JOLES: Isphanyar Bhandara is the CEO of Murree Brewery. When Bhutto was overthrown in a military coup, Bhandara’s father made an appeal to his successor, the conservative Zia-ul-Haq. Without alcohol, Bhandara argued, people might turn to worse vices like drugs, not to mention the loss of millions of dollars in tax revenue for the state.
BHANDARA: He did understand, or buy, my father’s theory, and later on, they became very good golfing buddies.
JOLES: Alcohol consumption and sales are now only permitted in Pakistan for non-Muslims and foreigners. Murree Brewery has found a way around these market limitations by diversifying its offerings to include nonalcoholic options, like fruit-flavored malt drinks.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Think natural. Be natural. Drink natural. Murree Brewery – getting better with age.
JOLES: Murree’s alcoholic drinks have also done well in Pakistan, despite restrictions. But for years, Murree Brewery didn’t have the go-ahead to export them. The elder Bhandara lobbied to change that, as did Isphanyar when he took over the business in 2008. Both father and son have held seats in Pakistan’s Parliament.
BHANDARA: If we can sell it in Pakistan, why can’t we sell it to people who already are consumers of beer?
JOLES: That window finally opened earlier this year. It was met with tepid optimism within Murree Brewery.
RAMEEZ SHAH: Initially, we were not confident that all of the things will go smooth.
JOLES: Rameez Shah is the company’s export manager. He says they sent their first shipment to the United Kingdom in the spring to test out any snags in the export process. They’re exporting to Portugal and Japan as well, and they’re looking to ship to other countries, including the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF CONVEYOR BELT RUNNING)
JOLES: Inside the production area of Murree Brewery, cans move down a conveyor belt to get filled with frothy, golden beer. A member of the production team lists off the types of Murree beers being made here.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Light beer, Millennium, strong beer, (speaking Urdu).
JOLES: For now, the brewery says it doesn’t have to crank up production to fulfill export demands, but they’re hoping that might change. For NPR News, I’m Betsy Joles in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.