# Senegal

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

- Official name: Republic of Senegal
- Local name: Réewum Senegaal
- Caps in the collection: 7 (https://dacaps.imcoll.com/country_caps/91)
- Brands: 3

## Beer in Senegal

Beer in Senegal began as grain beer, not as an import. A 2024 ethnoarchaeological study in the Bedik villages of the south-east recorded 14 beer houses and several beer-cooking areas in five villages where sorghum beer is made, and an Italian trade magazine notes that millet beer, called Boumkaye or Niéniébane, is common in the south. Industrial beer came with the French. Until 1928 West Africa was supplied with bottled beer by Brasseries du Maroc, and in 1936 a colonial paper reported that cheap beer arrived from Marseille in casks to be bottled in Dakar, while branded beers came from France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

The Société des Brasseries de l'Ouest-Africain (SOBOA) was incorporated on 18 December 1928 by Brasseries du Maroc with the Compagnie de Bordeaux group (Gradis, Maurel et Prom and others) and Brasseries de la Meuse, with a capital of 10 million francs. Its brewery stands in the Bel-Air industrial zone by the port of Dakar; the plant started in 1930 and also made ice and soft drinks. Its beer was La Gazelle, and by 1938 the brewery employed 200 people. On 1 February 1950 SOBOA opened a plant at Bamako in French Sudan.

After independence the firm kept the market. It merged with the Compagnie hôtelière de l'Ouest Africain in June 1966. In 1970-71 the plant, with a capacity of 150,000 hl, sold 112,000 hl of beer (La Gazelle, Stork and Feingold) and 91,000 hl of soft drinks; the holding SOGEPAL owned 40.94% in 1971 and 52.28% in 1978. SOBOA took over the soft-drink maker SODAGA, the Coca-Cola licensee, in October 1973 and in 1982 absorbed the Société Industrielle des Brasseries du Sénégal (SIBRAS), a second brewing company set up in 1973 by a Swiss group. The Brasseries et Glacières Internationales (BGI) took over SOGEPAL in 1984, Castel bought BGI in January 1990, and SOBOA has been a Castel subsidiary since 1991.

SOBOA brews La Gazelle (4.2%, in 63 cl returnable bottles and, since 2013-14, in 50 and 33 cl), Flag, '33' Export and Castel Beer, and is the only large brewery in the country. In 2020 it ran four lines, two for glass and two for plastic bottles, making 723,000 hl of drinks a year. Losses ran from 2015 to 2017; in 2019 BGI, holding 96.1%, offered 690 euros a share to delist the company from Euronext Paris, and over 3 billion francs CFA went into the glass lines in 2018-19. In June 2022 it was reported to be losing its Coca-Cola licence from July, products that made up over a third of its output.

Craft brewing is very recent in a country that is over 95% Muslim, where a 2016 Unicef study found about 4% of men aged 15-49 had drunk alcohol in the past month. The Brasserie du Gecko, founded by the Frenchman Sébastien Flachs at Nguérigne near Ngaparou, 70 km south of Dakar, sold its first beers in 2020 and made 8,000-10,000 bottles a month in 2021. Maison Kalao started in Somone in early December 2021, brewing with Senegalese millet, rice and ginger and South African hops. On 17 September 2026 SOBOA launched the Ferox energy drink in Dakar, one of four Castel launches in Africa that week.

Sources:
- [Entreprises coloniales: Société des Brasseries de l'Ouest-Africain (SOBOA), Dakar (company file, updated 2023)](https://www.entreprises-coloniales.fr/afrique-occidentale/SOBOA.pdf)
- [SOBOA: Accueil, Historique (2024)](https://soboa.sn/)
- [Au Sénégal: La bière « La Gazelle », patrimoine du Sénégal (2014)](https://au-senegal.com/la-biere-la-gazelle-patrimoine-du-senegal,10399.html)
- [Au Sénégal: Société des Brasseries de l'Ouest africain (Soboa)](https://au-senegal.com/societe-des-brasseries-de-l-ouest-africain-soboa,3638.html)
- [Au Sénégal: « Je choisis le verre », une campagne écolo pour la Soboa (2020)](https://www.au-senegal.com/je-choisis-le-verre-une-campagne-ecolo-pour-la-soboa,15867.html?lang=fr)
- [Senego: La Soboa perd la licence Coca-Cola (2022)](https://senego.com/senegal-la-soboa-perd-la-licence-coca-cola_1435237.html)
- [237online: Ferox Energy, lancement à Dakar (2026)](https://www.237online.com/ferox-energy-lancement-dakar-senegal/)
- [EcoMatin: Castel déploie Ferox (2026)](https://ecomatin.net/cameroun-cote-divoire-gabon-senegal-castel-deploie-ferox-sa-nouvelle-offensive-dans-les-boissons-energisantes-en-afrique)
- [Seneweb: Le Sénégal découvre la saveur des bières artisanales (2021)](https://www.seneweb.com/fr/news/Societe/le-senegal-decouvre-la-saveur-des-bieres_n_366894.html)
- [Tract Hebdo: « Bono », « Gecko », des bières artisanales 100 % made in Sénégal (2021)](https://tract.sn/2021/12/29/bono-gecko-des-bieres-artisanales-100-made-in-senegal-cest-difficile-ce-metier-qui-touche-a-lalcool/)
- [franceinfo: Quand le Sénégal se met à brasser de la bière (2021)](https://www.franceinfo.fr/replay-radio/en-direct-du-monde/quand-le-senegal-se-met-a-brasser-de-la-biere_4905765.html)
- [ApeTime: Giro del mondo in birra, Senegal (2023)](https://www.apetimemagazine.com/giro-del-mondo-in-birra-senegal/)
- [UNIGE: Identifying Past Beer Production, an ethnoarchaeological study in Bedik villages, Senegal (2024)](https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:176560)
- [Brookston Beer Bulletin: Senegal Beer (2011)](https://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/senegal-beer/)
- [BeerAdvocate: Société Des Brasseries De L'Ouest Africain (S.O.B.O.A.)](https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/12225/)
- [Untappd: Brasserie Artisanale du Gecko](https://untappd.com/Geckobeers)
- [Untappd: KALAO](https://untappd.com/RaphaKalao)
- [Archontology: Senegal, Polity Style 1958-2026](https://archontology.org/nations/senegal/01_polity.php)
- [Wikipedia: History of Senegal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Senegal)
- [Wikipedia: Flag of Senegal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Senegal)

## Breweries (1)

- [Societe des Brasseries de l'Ouest Africain](https://dacaps.imcoll.com/brewery/1765.md) — 7 caps, 1928–