In Prohibition Pakistan, Colonial Brewer Plans Soft Drink Switch
- Export ban, illegal imports, court cases pressuring Murree
- Brewery was established in 1860 to cater for British soldiers
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In the red brick building of the more than century-old Murree Brewery Co. in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi, staff process about 15,000 cans of beer an hour in the technically dry Islamic republic.
Established in 1860 in the heights of the Western Himalayas to cater to demand from British soldiers during the colonial era, the brewery is the largest legal seller of booze in the country. On paper it sells to the less than 5 percent of the minority non-Muslim population. However, many Pakistanis privately also enjoy an alcoholic tipple and manage to bypass the ban on sales to Muslims.