The traditional drink of Sierra Leone is poyo, a palm wine served at weddings, births and funeral wakes. Freetown was founded in 1792 as a home for freed Black settlers, became a British Crown colony in 1808, and the hinterland was declared a Protectorate on 31 August 1896; the two were joined as an independent state on 27 April 1961. Industrial brewing in the country is the story of one company.

Sierra Leone Brewery Limited (SLBL) was incorporated in 1961, just after independence. Heineken and the United African Company, a Unilever subsidiary, began building the brewery at Wellington Industrial Estate in Freetown in October 1961, and the first brew, Star Lager, was mashed in on 23 November 1962. Heineken ran the technical side from the start; when the first shareholders (CFAO, Unilever, SCOA) sold out, Heineken took some of their shares together with Diageo's Guinness. Guinness Foreign Extra Stout was added in 1967 and the malt drink Maltina in 1992. Production stopped for six months in 1982 for lack of foreign exchange, and again for six months after the 1997 coup, when the brewery was ransacked. On 6 January 1999 rebels looted it, and production stayed down for a year and a half; during the war (1991-2002) it was used as quarters by RUF fighters. The brewery reopened in 2001, and in 2004 Star was relaunched with a new bottling line worth about EUR 6 million.

After the war President Kabbah asked Heineken to involve local farmers, and in 2005 SLBL began a local supply chain of sorghum to replace part of the imported malted barley. SLBL became a Heineken subsidiary on 23 June 2008; in 2012 Heineken International held 85%, Diageo 10% and the rest was held by Paterson Zochonis and local shareholders. Its share of the market rose from 65% in 2008 to 85% in 2011, and in 2012 it sold about 110,000 hl a year with 116 direct employees. Mutzig was added in October 2013, and the CREATE sorghum project ran in 2013-2019 with Heineken and the Dutch government. In 2016 Parliament set a duty of USD 4 a litre on imported drinks of up to 10% alcohol, and the Finance Act 2017 lowered the rates again. In December 2016 SLBL launched Salone Beer, brewed only from Sierra Leonean sorghum, and in 2017 it announced a doubling of capacity with a brewhouse upgrade and seven cylindrical-conical fermenting tanks.

No craft or independent brewer has been found; SLBL held about 65-70% of the beer market in 2025. On 10 July 2025 Heineken agreed to sell its whole stake to Sierra Bottling Group, a subsidiary of African Bottling Group. The ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority, notified on 12 September 2025, cleared the deal after its session of 5 November 2025, on condition that no exclusive distribution agreements are imposed, and SLBL announced that SBG had completed the purchase of 98.07% with effect from 1 December 2025. SLBL, with more than 300 employees, brews Star, Mutzig, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Salone Beer, Maltina and Trenk, and exports a part of its output to Guinea and Liberia.