According to the South African Craft Brewers Association, there are more than 200 craft breweries in the country. Craft beer began in the south of the Western Cape. The industry remained quite small until the early 2000s, when more and more of these companies began to appear. However, production and market value were still scattered.
It wasn't until about five years ago that craft beer began to gain more followers among South Africans. Now, there are about 220 craft breweries in South Africa, according to the South African Craft Brewers Association (CBASA). This figure only represents about one percent of the entire beer industry in South Africa. International expansion occurred in the 1970s and 1980s with the establishment of breweries in Botswana (Angola) and the purchase of the Canary Islands Beer Company from the Canary Islands.
The South African beer market is one of the largest in the world and an interesting market to watch with diverse trends. In 1998, SAB had an approximately 98 percent share of the South African beer market and was considered to be one of the lowest cost beer producers in the world. An example of this was National Sorghum Breweries (NSB), a black business consortium founded in 1990 and the first new player in the beer industry in more than 10 years. Participation in Central and South America began in 2001 with the acquisition of Honduran and Salvadoran breweries.
Although SAB (then called Castle Breweries) established South Africa's first pub in 1896, it didn't begin investing heavily in the service sector until 1949, when, in an aggressive expansion campaign, some 4.5 million pounds were invested in hotels and bars, as well as additional brewing facilities. South Africa, which accounts for 1.8 percent of total global beer consumption, is the twelfth country that consumes the most beer in the world. An example of this was National Sorghum Breweries (NSB), founded in 1990, and the first new player in the beer industry in more than ten years. The company that allowed SAB Lager to produce and distribute Amstel Lager beer in South Africa was canceled, ushering in a new era of competition for the industry.
The transaction, which had an implicit value of approximately 1.9 billion rands, meant that the empowerment group Tsogo Investments acquired control of Southern Sun Hotels, then the largest hotel group in Southern Africa, as well as Tsogo Sun, a leading casino operator in South Africa. However, the subsequent upheaval in the South African beer industry proved to be a blessing in disguise for SAB. When Glass medic, an American windshield repair and replacement company, was acquired in 1990, the South African parent company merged the subsidiaries under the name Belron International. Heineken does not provide exact figures for each of the countries in which it operates, but South Africa is among the best-performing countries in the financial results of the Dutch parent company.
Dreher Premium Lager was launched in South Africa that same year and, in recent years, the company has made a number of innovations in the categories of spirit drink coolers and apple beer.
