Beer came to Algeria with the French settlers after 1830, and breweries with their malt houses and ice works grew up in the towns: the Brasserie-Malterie algérienne at Mustapha near Algiers (1882), L'Algérienne in Oran (1898), the Belgian-owned La Gauloise in Algiers (1906) and the Brasseries et glacières d'Algérie at Maison-Carrée, today El Harrach (1955); the Reghaïa brewery dates from 1958.
After independence in 1962 the breweries went on for a home market that shrank as the settlers left. They were nationalised for good in 1975–1976 under SNEMA, the national mineral-water company, which ran four of them: El Harrach and Reghaïa near Algiers, Oran and Annaba. Algeria drank 624,000 hectolitres of beer in 1975, and under the state monopoly, later held by the Groupe Boissons d'Algérie, the breweries made 500,000 to 600,000 hectolitres a year.
Private brewing came with the opening of the economy. Tango of the Mehri group at Rouiba, the first private brewery, was founded in 1999 and brewed its first beer on 15 May 2001; La Bavaroise near Annaba (2002), Algad at Tessala El Merdja (2003) and the Brasserie de Kabylie at Tazmalt (2005) followed. The French Castel group began brewing Beaufort and 33 Export at Oued Tlelat near Oran in 2003 and bought La Bavaroise in 2003 and Algad in 2008; Heineken bought Tango in 2008. The state sold El Harrach in 2006, Oran and Reghaïa in 2008, and put Annaba, the last of its breweries, up for sale in 2013.
Most of the beer is drunk between Algiers and Kabylie, and the outlets close during Ramadan. In 2007 the market was put at 850,000 to 900,000 hectolitres, 2.5 to 2.8 litres a head; in 2013 seven breweries brewed 1.2 million hectolitres, most of it Castel's and Heineken's. The finance bill for 2027 would raise the excise on beer to 6,000 dinars a hectolitre, 7,000 above 5 per cent alcohol.
