Tusker (beer)

Tusker
Type Beer, pale lager, premium lager
Manufacturer Diageo
Country of origin Kenya
Introduced 1922
Alcohol by volume 4.2% (regular)
5.0% (malt)
4.0% (lite)
Website Official brand website

Tusker is a beer brand owned by East African Breweries, with over 700,000 hectolitres being sold in Kenya per year. It is also the largest African beer brand in the Diageo group.[1] It is a 4.2% ABV pale lager. The beer's slogan "Bia yangu, Nchi yangu" means "My beer, My country" in Swahili.

History

A bottle of Tusker in 2008. New design bottles with the current logo have since been launched.

In 1922, Kenya Breweries (now East African Breweries) was formally incorporated as a private limited company. The company's first beer was brewed on 15 December 1922. The first batch was delivered to the Stanley Hotel, where it was met with mixed reactions. The beer, originally from Kenya, shifted through to Tanzania and other countries in the African Great Lakes region, and soon began to be exported.

The company's first annual general meeting was held in 1923. George Hurst, the company's founder, was killed in an elephant hunting accident and in his memory, his brother Charles decided to name the first beer brewed "Tusker".

In 1929, the company's board moved to use malted barley in the beer's production instead of using imported malt extracts, significantly improving its taste and colour and saving the company at least £780 (approx. US$1,240 or 985) per year. In 2012, that is approximately £35,400 (approx. US$56,220 or €44,690), assuming an annual inflation rate of 2% from 2011 onwards.

Wooden beer cases were replaced with plastic cases in 1970. In 1987, Central Glass Industries also began producing Tusker bottles for the first time.

In early 2008, the UK supermarket chain Tesco began selling Tusker, followed soon after by Sainsbury's.[2]

Varieties

The three varieties of Tusker beer are a Gold award-winning products[3] from the World Quality Selections, organized yearly by Monde Selection. The taste and quality have also received recognition at the prestigious Monde Selection’s International Awards.[4]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.