# Bosnia and Herzegovina

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

- Local name: Bosna i Hercegovina
- Caps in the collection: 33 (https://dacaps.imcoll.com/country_caps/189)
- Brands: 15

## Beer in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Beer came late to a land of rakija: when the Trappists reached Banja Luka in 1869, the favourite drink there was homemade brandy, the local brewery says in its own history. The first industrial brewery was opened in Sarajevo on 24 May 1864 at Kovačići by Josef Feldbauer of Stara Gradiška, with the Ottoman governor Topal Osman Pasha as guest of honour. It did not prosper, and in 1870 Andrija Gerdoutsch took it over and called it the Czech Brewery. A small brewery already stood at Lukavica, and in 1881 the Viennese businessman Heinrich Löwe opened another at Bistrik, beside a spring. In 1893 the three were joined as Dionička Pivara Sarajevo. Its output rose from 54,570 hl in 1903 to 100,480 hl in 1910 and passed 150,000 hl in 1916. It is often said that this is the only brewery in Europe that kept working under both Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule, but no independent source confirms it.

Other plants followed after 1878. At the Trappist abbey of Mariastern near Banja Luka, founded in 1869 by Franz Pfanner, the monks first brewed only for themselves. The Banja Luka brewery dates itself from 1873, sales began in the late 1870s, and industrial production was registered at the district court on 6 June 1894; the English Wikipedia article on the abbey puts the start of the brewery in 1898. In 1924 the abbey's power plant, textile factory and brewery went to a joint-stock company. In Tuzla, Tasing and Köhn founded the Erste Dampf Brauerei, the First Steam Brewery, at Dolnja Tuzla in 1884 and brought Czech pilsner methods. In Mostar the Löwy brothers ran a brewery in a cave in Potkujundžiluk from 1886 or 1888, which the Sarajevo company later took over; it bought a plot there in 1895 and built the Ledara ice works in 1902-03.

After 1945 the breweries were nationalised. Dionička Pivara Sarajevo was declared an enterprise of republican importance on 2 September 1946, and it became Sarajevska pivara on 3 May 1947. Banja Luka's beer took the name Nektar in the 1960s, got new automated lines in 1975, and won the Grand Gold at Monde Selection in 1984. Sarajevo grew from 299,000 hl in 1984 to 784,000 hl in 1991, one of the four leading breweries of Yugoslavia, and was privatised by its workers at the start of the 1990s. In 1992-95 the plant, which stands over a spring, served the city as a source of drinking water; the company's pages disagree on whether beer production stopped.

Bihaćka pivovara in Bihać (Preminger, Unski Biser) is dated 1990 by Wikipedia and was fully privatised in 2000. Hercegovačka pivovara of Mostar, founded in 2007, brews Mostarsko pivo. Sarajevska pivara began brewing Oettinger under licence in December 2015. Since 2013 craft breweries have opened in Sarajevo, Vogošća, Banja Luka, Mostar, Doboj, Livno and Široki Brijeg; many are linked by the internet forum Volim Pivo (I Love Beer), which helped to organise the first craft beer fairs.

Imports dominate: in 2022 the country imported beer worth 141.6 million KM and exported 7.8 million KM. Ownership has changed in recent years. A 51.02% stake in Pivara Tuzla traded on the Sarajevo exchange in May 2017 and the local company RK Invest launched a bid for the rest in July 2017. In July 2024 the Croatian Stanić Group bought half of Bihaćka pivovara. Banjalučka pivara, the largest brewery (net sales of 28 million euro in 2024, about 240 employees, Nektar its flagship), was bought by Finland's Olvi: the deal was signed in September 2025 and completed on 5 January 2026.

Sources:
- [Sarajevo Brewery: Our history (2026)](https://sarajevska-pivara.com/en/)
- [Sarajevo Tourism Board: Sarajevo Brewery (2026)](https://sarajevo.travel/en/text/sarajevo-brewery/448)
- [Wikipedia: Sarajevska pivara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevska_pivara)
- [Banja Luka Brewery: History](https://banjaluckapivara.com/en/history)
- [Wikipedia: Mariastern Abbey, Banja Luka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariastern_Abbey,_Banja_Luka)
- [Povcast FFZG: Economic activities of the Trappist monastery Marija Zvijezda](https://povcast.ffzg.unizg.hr/gospodarske-djelatnosti-trapistickog-samostana-marija-zvijezda-kod-banja-luke/)
- [Olvi: Olvi completes the acquisition of Banjalucka Pivara (2026)](https://news.cision.com/olvi-oyj/r/olvi-completes-the-acquisition-of-banjalucka-pivara,c4288675)
- [inside.beer: Olvi acquires Banjalucka Pivara (2025)](https://www.inside.beer/news/detail/bosnia-herzegovina-olvi-acquires-banjalucka-pivara)
- [Wikipedia: Pivara Tuzla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivara_Tuzla)
- [SeeNews: Majority stake in Pivara Tuzla trades on Sarajevo bourse (2017)](https://seenews.com/news/majority-stake-in-bosnian-brewer-pivara-tuzla-trades-on-sarajevo-bourse-569512)
- [SeeNews: RK Invest to launch buyout bid for Pivara Tuzla (2017)](https://seenews.com/news/bosnias-rk-invest-to-launch-buyout-bid-for-brewer-pivara-tuzla-576613)
- [Wikipedia: Bihacka pivovara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biha%C4%87ka_pivovara)
- [N1: Stanic Group takes over Bihac brewery (2024)](https://n1info.ba/english/news/stanic-group-producer-of-non-carbonated-juices-takes-over-bihac-brewery/)
- [Hercegovina.in: Mostar, the Ledara building, short history](https://hercegovina.in/mostar-objekat-ledara-male-povijesne-crtice/)
- [The Balkan Pour: Hercegovacka Pivovara](https://thebalkanpour.com/balkan-beers/bosnian-beers/hercegovacka-pivovara/)
- [Balkan Insight via New East Archive: Bosnian craft beer industry booms (2016)](https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/6565/bosnian-craft-beer-industry-booms)
- [Progresiv: Sarajevo brewery starts production of Oettinger beer (2015)](https://revistaprogresiv.ro/arhive/bosnia-sarajevo-brewery-starts-production-oettinger-beer/)
- [Biznis.rs: Bosnian breweries are losing the battle, exports cover 5.5 percent of imports (2023)](https://biznis.rs/vesti/bosanske-pivare-gube-bitku-izvozom-se-pokrije-samo-55-odsto-uvoza/)
- [Archontology: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Polity Style 1992-2026](https://www.archontology.org/nations/bih/01_polity2.php)
- [Wikipedia: Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina)

## Breweries (6)

- [Pivara Banjalučka AD](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/5103.md) — 2 caps
- [Banjalučka Pivara](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/1755.md) — 13 caps, 1873–
- [Bihaćka Pivovara d.d.](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/1377.md) — 2 caps
- [Hercegovačka pivovara d.o.o.](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/1256.md) — 3 caps, 2007–
- [Sarajevska Pivara d.d.](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/310.md) — 9 caps, 1864–
- [Pivara Tuzla](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/2621.md) — 4 caps, 1884–