Abu Dhabi’s first brewery taps demand for beer under emirate’s relaxed alcohol laws, but blazing the trail wasn’t easy

Side Hustle has brewed up a storm in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, since it changed its laws to allow alcohol production to draw tourists like Dubai

With no road map, getting going was hard. Now the brewery has 14 craft beers on tap and aims to produce 100 to cater to the emirate’s diverse population

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A craft beer from Side Hustle Brews and Spirts, Abu Dhabi’s first brewery. Serving beer in the emirate has been made possible by the relaxation of its laws on alcohol production and consumption, but getting its first brewery off the ground brought challenges. Photo: AP

Published: 4:15pm, 24 May 2024

In 2018, Chad McGehee opened Side Hustle Brews and Spirits, an Abu Dhabi-branded brewery and distillery with funky camels on its cans and playful names familiar to anyone living in the United Arab Emirates.

The only problem was that it was illegal to produce alcohol in the country, so his company made its hoppy India pale ale in the United States and then imported it to the UAE for sale.

That has all changed as Abu Dhabi has overhauled its laws to allow for the microbreweries and craft breweries that have taken the rest of the world by storm, part of a wider reconsideration of alcohol policies in an Islamic nation increasingly drawing tourists.

And McGehee’s dream of IPAs in Arabia became a reality – though it took hard work as it was the first craft brewery to open.

Mitchell Dougherty, Side Hustle Brews and Spirits’ master brewer, at Craft, the company’s Abu Dhabi brew pub. Photo: AP

“The government had created a regulation around fermentation, but the steps of getting a permit, the steps of inspection, all of these things were not put on paper yet. So that had to be built out as we were going through this process,” McGehee says at his brew pub on Abu Dhabi’s Al Maryah Island.