Sierra Leone Brewery Limited

8°26′33.1″N 13°09′54″W

Sierra Leone Brewery Limited

Founded	Freetown, Sierra Leone (March 16, 1963 (1963-03-16))
Headquarters	Freetown , Sierra Leone
Key people	Willy Ngana (MD)[1]
Products	Beer, The brewing, marketing, and selling of lager, stout, and malt drink)
Brands	Star, Maltina, Heineken, Guinness, Mutzig
Owner	Heineken (83.15%) Guinness (11.59%) Paterson Zochonis (3.02%) Sierra Leoneans (2.24%)
Number of employees	125[2]
Footnotes / references [3]

Heineken and United African Company (UAC) began construction of the Sierra Leone Brewery Limited in October 1961 in Wellington Industrial Estate in Freetown, and the first brew was mashed-in on 23 November 1962. The first brand to be brewed was Star Lager.^[4]

A Brass plaque recording the opening of the Sierra Leone Brewery by Sir Milton Margai on 16 March 1963

It closed for six months in 1982 following a shortage of foreign exchange, reopening after the end of the rainy season. During the 1997 Military Coup, the brewing stopped for six months after the brewery was ransacked. On 6 January 1999, the rebel forces looted the brewery, stopping production for one and a half years.^{[citation needed]}

A brass plaque recording the reopening of the Sierra Leone Brewery by Ahmad Tejan Kabbah after the destruction of the brewery by rebels in the civil war.

Products

• Star Lager - Pale Lager (launched in 1962)
• Amstel ^[5]
• Guinness Foreign Extra Stout 7.5% ABV (launched in 1967)
• Mützig Lager (October 2013)^[6]
• Salone Beer (made of 100% sorghum)^[7]
• Maltina (Alcohol-free)
• Trenk Dark Malt Energy Drink ^[8]

Community investment

In 2006 a program was started to encourage local farmers to grow sorghum as part of a local sourcing drive.^[9] The current target of the local sourcing program is to receive 60% of raw materials from within Africa.^[10] The production of Salone Beer, made with 100% sorghum, has created a reliable source of income for over 12,000 farming families.^[11]