Rawalpindi, Pakistan: Pakistan's sole licensed brewery has a catchy slogan: "Eat, Drink and be Murree," which is the name of the beer in makes. But few know it in the Islamic republic because alcohol advertising is banned.
Legally, so is drinking it for the 97 percent of the county's 165 million people who are Muslim.
Murree is a Raj beer, from a different era and culture. Founded by two Britons in 1860 when Pakistan was under British colonial rule as part of greater India, it was brewed to wet the palate of the colonial soldiers stationed in the region.
But locals grew a taste for the beer, too, and after independence from Britain in 1947 and partition of greater India the brewery has kept filling beer bottles, with a few hiccups along the way.
They hired a German brew master and in 1964 the operation switched from British brewing to German. Since the 1970s, however, all the employees have been Pakistani.
Most of them are Muslim, including general manager Mohammad Javed who has 23 years with the company.
But in today's Pakistan, with far fewer than 100 legal alcohol outlets and only eight of them in Punjab province, where 60 percent of Pakistan's 165 million people live, one wonders how they stay in business.
"The legalities are only a fig leaf. More than 90 percent of our customers are Muslim," chief executive MP Bhandara while sipping a beer in his 60-year-old office.
The brewery currently bottles about 4 million litres of beer a year, which is about the same as the average large beer brewer in Germany, he said.
"It is a complicated situation, to say the least. Officially no Muslim is allowed to consume liquor," Bhandara said.
Muslims are forbidden permits to buy liquor, so people will employ non-Muslim servants to buy the liquor from the shops. The upper-class have bootleggers deliver to their homes. "They cannot be bothered sending out their staff to the shops," he said.
Although import and export of alcohol are also officially banned, the upper classes buy the best from everywhere, including the whiskies and beers. And everyone knows it is available in expensive clubs. It is all smuggled.
Each government enforces the alcohol ban to varying degrees, and usually they become more lax the longer they're in office.
Even under General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, a follower of Koranic law when president and military ruler from 1977 to 1988, alcohol sales continued to increase.
"The government gets a big revenue from liquor, so on the one hand they don't want to lose their revenue, and on the other they want to show they support prohibition," he said.
Bhandara said beer is the history of the company, but their malt whiskies are their best products, with 8- and 12-year malts on the market and a 21-year malt to hit the market in October 2008.
For the business, though, non-alcoholic divisions are playing an increasing role.
Tops Food & Beverage, which produces non-alcohol drinks, is the fastest growing. And there is also Murree Glass making bottles.
Liquor production continues to see "a modest increase every year" to fill growing demand, but overall it means less to the company, Bhandara said.
"Ten years ago non-alcohol products were negligible where by 2007 they were worth about 50 percent. In another 10 years the liquor production to the total contribution will be down to about 33 percent," he said.
He makes it clear that although beer sales are increasing, the rest of the company is growing faster.
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