Seychelles was uninhabited until August 1770, when the first French settlers landed on Sainte Anne off Mahé. Britain took the islands in 1794 and kept them from 1811, ruling them from Mauritius until 1903, when they became a Crown colony in their own right. For two centuries the islands' own alcohol was baka, a strong fermented sugar-cane drink, and the colonial government even ran a Baka Club in Victoria; the little beer on sale was imported by the Richard Mancham Company. In 1967 the economy still rested on cinnamon, patchouli and guano, the airport was not built, and the population was about 65,000.
The first brewery was the idea of Robert Wells, W. N. Wells and C. V. Nash, three British brewing men who wrote to the colonial administrator in 1967. They were promised an exclusive licence on 16 August 1967; Seychelles Breweries was licensed on 27 May 1968 and registered in England on 28 October 1969. Production had to wait for a new Rivers and Streams Act (20 October 1969), which gave it water rights, and for a Companies Ordinance that came into force only in 1972. The site at Le Rocher, in the district of Les Mamelles, was bought from the Le Mennais Brothers for GBP 11,000. About 60 locals bought shares at the first offering, GBP 16,555 of a GBP 250,000 capital. In October 1971 the German brewer Jonathan Haase, whose firm ran some 45 breweries in Africa, became managing director, and the first SeyBrew Lager was launched in September 1972 under the Austrian master brewer Walter Dramer (sources give 1 and 10 September). To test the market and to have bottles to fill, the founders had first imported Carlsberg. Seychellois soon called the beer Delo Mamelles, water from Les Mamelles; it won gold in Brussels in 1974.
Guinness was brewed there from October 1972, SeyPearl soft drinks from November, Eku Bavaria under licence from the Kulmbach brewery from 1984 and Coca-Cola from 1993. The foreign-exchange shortage from the late 1990s forced the range to shrink; the recovery after 2010 brought new equipment, the distribution of Diageo spirits, the Slow Turtle cider (2019), SeyBrew Lite at 4.2 per cent (December 2019) and Vann Swet, a Creole-style 8 per cent beer in 500 ml cans (February 2021). In 2019 SeyBrew was selling 3.5 times more than the second beer on the market.
Diageo, through Diageo Holdings Netherlands and Guinness Overseas, held 54.4 per cent of the company, and local shareholders, among them the Seychelles Pension Fund, most of the rest. Diageo announced the sale of its stake to Phoenix Beverages of Mauritius (IBL Group) on 2 April 2025, and the sale closed on 1 July 2025. Guinness and Smirnoff ready-to-drink are still made there under licence, and the shares stay on the MERJ Exchange. The first export, of SeyBrew and Slow Turtle to Mauritius, followed in October 2025, and Seybrew Strong, at 7.8 per cent, was launched in August 2026.
Craft brewing is new and fragile. The 1770 Brewery, a small craft brewery and bar at Eden Plaza on Mahé, opened in April 2016 under the Russian brewer Vladimir Borisenko. Christian Mein launched Seychelles Blonde, 4.5 per cent, the first craft beer sold in bottles, at Beau Vallon in October 2019; he brewed it at Les Mamelles. In February 2025 Zil Kreol Brewery at Au Cap poured its first limited releases at the Greenhouse restaurant; its Lougarou Lager and Katiti Pale Ale are now brewed there, and it calls itself the only locally owned brewery in Seychelles. I found no recent reports on the 1770 Brewery or Seychelles Blonde.
