# Angola

Country page of DA Caps, a collection of beer bottle caps. Web page: https://dacaps.imcoll.info/country/ao/info

- Official name: Republic of Angola
- Local name: República de Angola
- Caps in the collection: 12 (https://dacaps.imcoll.info/country_caps/201)
- Brands: 5

## Beer in Angola

Long before industrial beer, the peoples of Angola brewed their own drinks: the Chokwe of the Lunda provinces made mongozo from palm nuts, a beer that is now also brewed for export in Belgium, and maize and palm drinks were made at home across the country.

Industrial brewing came under Portuguese rule. In 1947 the two leading Portuguese brewers founded CUCA, the Companhia União de Cervejas de Angola, whose brewery opened in Luanda in 1952; Cuca has led the market ever since. Nocal, the Nova Empresa de Cervejas de Angola, followed in Luanda in 1958, EKA in Dondo in 1969 and N'gola in Lubango in 1974. In the boom of the 1960s and the colonial war Cuca and Nocal were the beers of the Portuguese soldiers too, and in northern Namibia, where it was banned but sold everywhere, the bars were known as Cuca shops.

After independence in 1975 the breweries were nationalised, Cuca on 26 May 1976, and in 1980 they were joined in the state Empresa Nacional de Cervejas de Angola. The civil war kept output low: in 1994 the installed capacity was only 180,000 hectolitres a year. From 1994 the French Castel group (BGI) ran Cuca for the state; after the war ended in 2002 the breweries were privatised, Castel took Cuca, EKA and Nocal in 2007 and later N'gola, and it enlarged the Cobeje brewery at Bom Jesus and opened plants in Cabinda and Huambo. In 2009 eight breweries made about 6.9 million hectolitres.

New brewers came in the 2010s: Refriango opened its Tigra brewery at Kikuxi near Luanda in April 2016, and Sodiba inaugurated a 1.44 million hectolitre brewery at Bom Jesus in 2017 for Luandina and Sagres under licence. The currency crisis that followed cut the market, which made about 800 million litres in 2018, and closed several plants; in 2025 the state put the CIF brewery of Bom Jesus, maker of Bela, up for sale. Castel still dominates, and in 2022 beer made 17 per cent of the industrial GDP of Angola.

Sources:
- [Wikipedia: Cuca (beer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuca_(beer))
- [Wikipedia (de): Cuca BGI](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuca_BGI)
- [Wikipedia (de): Nocal](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocal)
- [Wikipedia: Angolan cuisine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_cuisine)
- [Angonotícias: Indústria cervejeira angolana em alta (2010)](https://www.angonoticias.com/Artigos/item/26114/industria-cervejeira-angolana-em-alta)
- [Drinks International: Angola beer Tigra to triple production (2017)](https://drinksint.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/7109/Angola_beer_Tigra_to_triple_production.html)
- [Inside.beer: Angola, new 1.44 million hl brewery inaugurated (2017)](https://www.inside.beer/news/detail/angola-new-144-million-hl-brewery-inaugurated)
- [Ministério das Finanças: Fábrica de Cervejas (CIF Brewery Lowenda), ficha sumária (2025)](https://www.ucm.minfin.gov.ao/cs/groups/public/documents/document/aw40/njiy/~edisp/minfin4622914.pdf)

## Breweries (3)

- [Empresa de Cervejas N'gola](https://dacaps.imcoll.info/brewery/2887.md) — 2 caps, 1974–
- [Nocal-Nova Empresa de Cervejas de Angola](https://dacaps.imcoll.info/brewery/1931.md) — 9 caps, 1958–
- [Refriango S.A. S.A.](https://dacaps.imcoll.info/brewery/6848.md) — 1 cap