On the corner of a nondescript street in downtown Doha, tucked away inside one of the city’s many five-star hotels, Claw BBQ restaurant is coming to life.
Not that you’d know it from the outside. Standing on the street, you wouldn’t have a clue that one of Qatar’s most popular watering-holes is just a stone’s throw away. Its windows are blacked out, its walls are layered with sound-proofing, and there are no signs pointing you in the right direction. You can’t even see it on Google Street View.
Like all establishments that serve alcohol in Qatar, Claw BBQ is deliberately hidden. It’s not until you pass the security screening at the hotel’s entrance and deliberately look around that you spot its simple glass door and small branded sign.
Once inside, you’re struck by a scene that feels more fitting for downtown Dallas than Doha. Country music twangs out of speakers hung in the corners, dozens of flat-screen televisions show football, basketball, and the NFL.
Sports jerseys, old photos, and fluorescent drive-in signs line the exposed-brick walls as barmen hand out baskets of fries and burgers and small cardboard slides of thin matches for people sitting around the indoor smoking section.
In the centre of the room, World Cup-themed banners and flags are draped around the central bar that has several taps either side and a wall of hard liquor bottles in the middle. Claw BBQ’s staff wear uniforms that look like 1930s baseball kits – hats included.
Technically, they’re serving in a country where alcohol is illegal under sharia law. But their menu offers over 50 alcohol drinks from draft and bottled beers to wine, cocktails, and straight-up shots
The cheapest beer comes in at just over $20, while the most affordable bottle of white wine clocks in at roughly $100. The most expensive item? A bottle of French champagne that’ll set you back $1,435.
This bar – like all others in Qatar – is not part of any official tournament guide. It’s not included in any “Things To Do” brochures for the 1.2 million fans expected to arrive in Doha over the next few weeks.
It is part of the country’s alcohol underground, a network of pubs, bars and clubs that have quietly emerged in the country’s underbelly as it has opened its arms to the rest of the world over the past two decades. So while it may be banned according to the letter of the law, alcohol is readily available if you know where to look.
And everybody in Qatar knows where to look
Alcohol has been one of the biggest sticking-points of this World Cup since Qatar was awarded the hosting rights back in 2010. It’s the first time FIFA’s global showpiece, which this year is sponsored by Budweiser, has been held in a “dry” country, and it’s something that both FIFA and the Qatari government have been wrestling with ever since.
Until this week, it appeared that FIFA had won. Such is the governing body’s geopolitical influence and the power of corporate sponsorship that it had convinced Qatar to relax its public drinking laws for the duration of the tournament
In FIFA’s official fan guide, they said that fans would be able to purchase Budweiser (the tournament’s sponsor), Budweiser Zero, and Coca Cola products around stadiums for up to three hours before kick-off and for one hour afterwards. Many other alcohol options are also available at the Fan Zones scattered throughout the rest of the city.
It was a decision that always sat uncomfortably with Qatar, but it was a compromise they struck with FIFA in the interests of public perception; of presenting themselves as a progressive, outward-looking nation.
But like many other tensions threaded throughout this bizarre tournament, there was never going to be an easy way to reconcile a religious country that bans alcohol with a sport whose culture and economy revolves around it.
On Friday, two days out from the World Cup’s opening ceremony, the tension cracked. FIFA announced that, “following discussions between the host country and FIFA,” alcoholic beers would be banned in and around stadiums, though it would still be available in Fan Zones and other licensed premises. It will also still be permitted for corporate sponsors and VIPs attending games.
The decision came a week after organisers were asked by the ruling family that the iconic red Budweiser-branded beer tents be moved to more discrete locations around stadiums, largely out of the way of where most fans will pass through. They’re worried about the very real possibility of groups of drunken fans causing damage and disaster in a country that has never seen anything like that before.
The shifting of the proverbial goalposts on alcohol over the past year has caused confusion for overseas fans, some of whom are led to believe that alcohol is not available at all, while others take umbrage with its extraordinary price ranges — something largely the result of luxury and import taxes (businesses cannot import their own alcohol into Qatar so must go through the single distribution centre, which requires a number of checks and permits to use).
The confusion hasn’t stopped travelling fans from trying to get a pint, though. Dozens of fans have posted questions on closed Facebook groups asking where the best drinking options are in Doha, and often receive a wave of enthusiastic replies.
The Green and Gold Army, Australia’s official travelling contingent, will park themselves at The Hive Aussie, an Australian-themed sports bar inside the Intercontinental Hotel, for the duration of the tournament.
One travelling American fan has even put together a map of all the available venues in the country, a kind of underground railroad for booze hounds, which lists almost 200 bars in hotels and resorts and other licensed establishments. The reality is that alcohol is readily available if you know where to look.
At Claw BBQ, I start chatting with a local Qatari man about this place we’ve both ended up, which seems so unlike what I expected when I got here. The concerns I’d read about felt overblown, sharpened by particular factions of media who were framing Qatar through their own lens of what is good for a country they have never lived in, and whose history and culture they have not tried to understand.
He was reflective as he sipped a tall glass of draft beer.
“People outside do not see the full Qatar,” he said, lighting a cigarette.
“A lot has changed in the past five years. You see all the new buildings and roads and stadiums, but underneath all that, with more young people and more international tourists, Qatar is also slowly becoming more liberal and more open.
“Yes, things are not as good as they might be in your country, but they are getting better. Especially compared to our neighbours. These places are what we have right now. They a step towards that future.”
The barman hands me a free tequila shot as Johnny Cash’s voice twangs around the room.
