# Guinea

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

- Official name: Republic of Guinea
- Local name: République de Guinée
- Caps in the collection: 4 (https://dacaps.imcoll.info/country_caps/154)
- Brands: 3

## Beer in Guinea

Guinea is a mostly Muslim country, and its old drink is not beer but palm wine. In the forest region round N'Zérékoré the sap of the raffia or oil palm, called bandji or touguiyé and in French simply vin blanc or blanco, is drunk in groups in the evening cabarets and offered to a guest with water as a sign of welcome; Dubréka near Conakry is said to make the best of it.

Industrial beer came late. In 1948 SOBOA of Dakar, the maker of La Gazelle, set up a bottling line in Conakry for beer brewed in Senegal. When Guinea alone voted against the French constitution and became independent in 1958, the plant was nationalised under Sékou Touré as the Société des Brasseries de Guinée, SOBRAGUI, and from then on the beer was brewed in Guinea itself.

In 1987, after the end of the Touré regime, the state sold the brewery to the Belgian group Unibra, one of the founders of the Skol brand. Skol came onto the market in 1987-88; it and Guiluxe, "la Guinéenne de Luxe", drunk as the national beer for more than thirty years, are the two best-known beers of the country. A can line came in 1996, kegs in 1997, a second bottle line in 2001, and in 2006 a second brewery at Kissidougou in the forest region, 601 km from the capital. In 2008 Unibra sold Sobragui to the Castel group (BGI); Skol is still brewed under licence from Unibra and Guinness under licence from Diageo, with 33 Export from 2011 and Castel Beer from 2012.

Sobragui is the only brewery in the country, a monopoly the press complained of in 2016. It sold a record of more than 320,000 hectolitres in 2016; in 2018 Castel put 25 million euros into the Madina plant, with a line of 40,000 bottles an hour, and in 2019 came Doppel Munich, the first dark beer brewed in Guinea. In 2023 the company took the name Société des Boissons Rafraîchissantes de Guinée. In 2024 it showed medals won in Belgium by 33 Export, Beaufort and Guiluxe, got 9 hectares at Sanoyah for a new bottling line and put Guiluxe on sale in 65 cl bottles.

Sources:
- [Wikipedia (fr): Sobragui](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobragui)
- [Wikipedia: Unibra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unibra)
- [Entreprises coloniales: Société de Brasserie de Guinée (Sobragui) (2023)](https://www.entreprises-coloniales.fr/afrique-occidentale/SOBRAGUI.pdf)
- [Sobragui: Notre histoire](https://sobragui.com/notre-histoire/)
- [Go Africa Online: Sobragui](https://www.goafricaonline.com/gn/24642-sobragui-brasserie-conakry-guinee)
- [Guinee7: Sobragui, l'arnaque des consommateurs et le monopole (2016)](https://www.guinee7.com/2016/04/14/sobragui-larnaque-des-consommateurs-et-le-monopole-procurent-une-belle-dose-adulte/)
- [Guinéenews: Vin blanc, une valeur sociale dans les communautés forestières (2018)](https://guineenews.org/2018/08/27/vin-blanc-au-dela-dune-simple-boisson-une-valeur-sociale-dans-les-communautes-forestieres-reportage/)
- [Guinéenews: La Sobragui lance une nouvelle boisson (2019)](https://guineenews.org/2019/06/15/guinee-la-sobragui-lance-une-nouvelle-boisson/)
- [Guinéenews: Les bières de Sobragui récompensées à Bruxelles (2024)](https://guineenews.org/2024/02/16/les-bieres-de-sobragui-sous-les-feux-de-la-rampe-honneurs-et-recompenses-a-bruxelles/)
- [Guinéenews: Guiluxe de 65 centilitres (2024)](https://guineenews.org/2024/09/29/brasserie-la-sobragui-met-sur-le-marche-un-nouveau-format-de-guiluxe-de-65-centilitres/)
- [Archontology: Guinea, Polity Style 1958-2026](https://archontology.org/nations/guinea/01_polity.php)

## Breweries (1)

- [Sobragui S.A.](https://dacaps.imcoll.info/brewery/2001.md) — 4 caps, 1948–