Beer History Storyline
Beer, Colonial Power, and Informal Brewing
Trace how enslavement, colonial concessions, liquor taxes, racial administration, and industrial supply systems reshaped household and informal brewing—and how brewers, workers, and drinkers preserved or contested those traditions.
Chronological milestones
Sources and further references are available on each individual event page.
1813
Peter Hemings Takes Charge of Brewing and Malting at Monticello
March 14, 1890
La Fábrica de Cerveza de San Miguel Receives a Brewing Concession in Manila
1903
The Germania Brewery Opens in Colonial Qingdao
1908
Natal’s Native Beer Act Enables Municipal Beer Monopolies
1916
Colonial Korea’s Liquor Tax Ordinance Restricts Home Brewing
December 14, 1922
Kenya Breweries Begins Production in Nairobi
June 1929
African Workers Boycott Durban’s Municipal Beer Halls
June 1949
Nigerian Brewery Produces Star Lager in Lagos
June 17, 1959
Women at Cato Manor Lead a Municipal Beer-Hall Boycott
1962
Heinrich’s Chibuku Begins Brewing Opaque Sorghum Beer in Rhodesia
1981
A Study Documents Women’s Commercial Sorghum-Beer Economy in Upper Volta
January 1, 1988
Nigeria’s Barley-Malt Import Ban Accelerates Sorghum Brewing Research
1995
South Korea Ends the Crackdown on Alcohol Brewed for Household Use
December 2001
Nile Breweries Launches a Lager Built Around Ugandan Sorghum
March 14, 2025
South African Regulations Define Traditional African Beer