Murree Brewery

Murree Brewery is a Pakistani multinational manufacturer of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. It is Pakistan's largest and oldest producer of alcoholic products. In 2015, it produced 10 million litres of beer, along with hundreds of tons of single malt whisky, vodka and brandy. Founded by the British in 1860, it is a publicly traded company listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, and its products are exported to Bangladesh. In 2014, the company established a US flagship store on Park Avenue, in Manhattan, New York City. In 2013, it was named by Forbes as one of Asia's 200 best companies.

The brewery has two manufacturing units, one located in Rawalpindi, Punjab, and the other in Hattar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It has three divisions: Liquor (which deals with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks), Tops (which focuses on food items, mineral water, and fruit juices), and Glass (which makes glass jars and bottles) divisions. It is one of Pakistan's fastest-growing companies.

The Murree Brewery Company Ltd. was established in 1860 to meet the demands of British military and civilian personnel at Ghora Gali near the resort town of Murree. The brewery was managed by the family of Edward Dyer. In the 1880s the company established a further brewery in Rawalpindi and a distillery in Quetta.

Due to scarcity of water in Murree in the 1920s, brewing was mostly transferred to Rawalpindi, but malting continued at Ghora Gali until the 1940s, when this property was sold. This brewery, built in the Gothic revival style of architecture, was burnt during the independence of Pakistan in 1947, while the brewery in Quetta was destroyed in the 1935 Quetta earthquake. In the 1940s, the controlling share or interest in the brewery was obtained by a Parsi, Peshton Bandhara, who used to run a liquor business in Lahore before Pakistani independence. His son, the late M.P. Bandhara later carried on the business and now it is being run by a grandson, Isphanyar M. Bandhara.

In the 1960s the brewery imported oak casks from North America, Australia and Spain, and the underground cellars now hold over half a million litres of malt whisky for varying periods of maturation up to 12 years. Murree brewery produces a single malt whisky.^{[citation needed]}

A new beer canning and modern bottle filling facility were installed in the 1990s, imported from Germany. In 2001, the brewery had been temporarily closed for producing too much polluting waste. Authorities slapped the environmental protection order on the Murree Brewery in Rawalpindi, Islamabad's twin city.

In 2007, Murree became the Muslim world's first distillery to make 20-year-old malt whisky named "Rarest Malt Whisky". But, according to law, it cannot be exported and cannot be consumed by 97% of the population of Pakistan as local law prohibits Muslims from drinking alcohol. However, the CEO of Murree Brewery claimed that "99 per cent of his customers are Muslims in Pakistan".

In 1977, the Murree Brewery suffered a significant setback when Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto imposed a total alcohol prohibition in Pakistan. Subsequently, the government of President General Zia-ul-Haq amended this law, requiring anyone wishing to consume alcohol to present credentials demonstrating that they were non-Muslim. The small Christian, Hindu and Parsi communities were not large enough to support the enterprise, and production had to be scaled back.