The United Arab Emirates has no old brewing tradition. The sheikhdoms of the Trucial Coast were bound to Britain by treaties from 1820 and by exclusive protection agreements from 1892, until the treaties lapsed on 1 December 1971; six emirates formed the federation the next day and Ras Al Khaimah joined on 10 February 1972. Beer was a trade good, not a local product. Until the late 1970s alcohol was sold freely in Dubai's cafes, hotels, clubs and shops, imported in bulk by two trading houses, Gray Mackenzie (MMI from 1983) and African & Eastern, largely for re-export to the drier states around the Gulf. In 1979 Dubai tightened the rules, and liquor licences, monthly permits and licensed outlets followed. Sharjah is dry to this day.
For decades the only beer-like drink made in the country was not beer at all: Barbican, a non-alcoholic malt drink. It was brewed by Bass in Britain and imported by Aujan from 1983; with the Swiss Moussy it was the first non-alcoholic malt drink on sale in the region. Aujan, a family firm founded in Bahrain in 1905 and the Vimto licensee for the Middle East since 1928, bought the Barbican brand in select markets in 1999, after Bass changed its production, and took complete control in 2010, when it began making the drink at its factory in Dubai (opened in 2005 at Dubai Investments Park). Barbican is brewed from barley malt and hops by mashing, lautering and boiling, and is sold as a malt and in ten fruit flavours. In December 2011 Coca-Cola agreed to buy half of Aujan's brand-owning company and 49% of its bottling business for about USD 980 million; the deal closed on 24 September 2012 and created Aujan Coca-Cola Beverages Company (ACCBC) in Dubai, which makes Barbican beside Rani and Vimto.
The law then eased step by step. In October 2019 Dubai let tourists buy alcohol in state-controlled shops, as UAE alcohol sales fell by volume for the first time in a decade. In September 2020 Abu Dhabi dropped the licence needed to buy and drink alcohol, and in November 2020 a federal decree ended prosecution for drinking without a licence; each emirate still sets its own rules. At the start of 2023 Dubai ended its 30% tax on alcohol sales and the fee for liquor licences. A "fermentation permit" in Abu Dhabi's licensing guidelines of 2021 made brewing on the premises possible, and in December 2023 Craft by Side Hustle, a brewpub at the Galleria on Al Maryah Island, became the first licensed brewery in the country. It belongs to Balmaghie Beverage Group, formed in 2018 by expatriates around Chad McGehee, whose Side Hustle beers were brewed in Pennsylvania and sold in the UAE from 2019. It can make about 25,000 pints a month for its own taps; packaged beer must still be made abroad.
The first industrial brewery is still to come. On 28 November 2024 Sirocco, the joint venture of Heineken and MMI (the alcohol arm of the Emirates Group, in the market since 2005), announced the Gulf's first large-scale brewery in Dubai: permits in hand, construction to begin before the end of 2025, Heineken, Kingfisher, Amstel and Birra Moretti by the end of 2027, and staff growing from 60 to 190. In Ras Al Khaimah Falcon Brews plans a USD 65 million brewery and spirits bottling plant in the Al Hulaila Industrial Free Zone (groundbreaking announced for June 2024; a USD 25 million loan reported in June 2025). No report was found that either is brewing yet.
