Beer was first brewed nearly 6,000 years ago by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia and the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt. The beer produced in ancient Egypt was far more refined, lighter in color, smoother, and closer to what we drink today. Modern brewing began at the end of the nineteenth century when foreign entrepreneurs had a vision to make Egypt a beer producing country once again.
On Stella’s 120th anniversary, let’s celebrate the Pharaohs for introducing fine lager to the world.
An ancient Egyptian beer making scene inside Amenemhat’s tomb at Bani Hassan, south of Minya in Upper Egypt.
The Early Days of Stella Production
Initially, Stella production was centered in Alexandria under the Crown Brewery Company in 1897, followed by the Pyramid Brewery founded in Cairo in 1898. Both breweries produced and sold a beer named Stella, each based on completely different recipes. Incorporated in Belgium--home to the world famous Stella Artois--the first producers of the Egyptian Stella opened shop in May 1898 under the name Crown Brewery Company of Cairo.
But in order to avoid confusion with its older Alexandria sibling by the same name, the directors quickly decided on a name change: Société Anonyme Brasserie des Pyramides (Pyramids Brewery). For several decades thereafter, the fortress-like beer plant in the district of Bein al-Sarayat remained one Giza's most famous landmarks. Pyramids Brewery's first public share offering comprised 15,000 shares priced at FF 100 each.
Due to high start-up costs, the company was obliged to launch a second share issue in November 1904 bringing total shares on the market to 20,000. All these changes came with a hefty price tag, yet by year-end 1906, Pyramids Brewery made it into the black showing a profit of FF 164,023 with a 30% increase in overall production. Board chairman Chakour Pasha could now toast his fellow directors Messrs. L. Carton de Wiart, Florent Lambert, J. Debonne, Alfonso Colucci and L. Dumonceau.
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At first, treated Nile water was used for the production of the golden ale, but finding it was not up to the required standard, Pyramids Brewery resorted to aquifers. Another change in keeping with growing demand was the necessity to keep a constant stock of 6,281 hectoliters with a guaranteed four-month storage period to ensure quality.
Merger and Dominance
In 1921, Crown and Pyramid breweries merged to produce Stella under a unified recipe. The merger arose from strategic necessity, ending direct competition and creating the largest brewing operation in Africa at the time. It would take a series of mergers and acquisitions--the first in 1909 and the last on Christmas day 1922-- before the emerging Bomonti & Pyramids Beer Company could call itself Egypt's leading brewery. By then, Stella beer had become the symbol of reliability and good times.
After the war, with a capital of LE 192,875, Bomonti & Pyramids Beer Company underwent major changes in conformity with the New Company Act requiring larger Egyptian representation on company boards. This was when Cotton King Mohammed Ahmed Fargahli Pasha also became known as King Beer reference to his becoming the first Egyptian to run Bomonti & Pyramids.
The older generations may still remember how, if arak was not available, the affordable Stella (6.5 piasters per bottle in the 1940s!) took precedence at the Kit-Kat, the Dahabia, the Parisienne, Chez Badia or Casino al-Shagara, Cairos most popular digs in the pre-1950 era. Not a Christmas or Shabat passed where Stella was not present on the table whenever guests appeared. Sham al-Nessim would invariably mean fessikh and Stella.
Accusations and Nationalization
During the 1950s, Crown and Pyramid Breweries faced accusations of employing anti-competitive practices. Nile Brewery, a competitor founded at the time, alleged that Crown and Pyramid used illegal means to suppress competition; however, these allegations remained unverified.
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In 1963, Heineken's operations in Egypt experienced a significant setback when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized Crown and Pyramid Breweries, consolidating them into a single state-owned entity known as Al Ahram Beverages Company. In July 1953, a year after the hurried departure of another king--Farouk of Egypt--the "Bomonti" in the company's name was dropped and the "Pyramids" arabized to Al Ahram.
More changes still when, in 1962, Ahram Beverages along with Egypt's entire private sector succumbed to sequestration and nationalization. Crown Brewery Company of Alexandria, which had so far resisted merging with its Cairo nemesis, did so by ministerial decree. Competition and quality suffered as government appointees, free from shareholder accountability, were coerced into importing the company's needs from the Soviet Union and its Eastern satellites.
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It was during this time that the non-alcoholic brand Birell was launched as a means of placating growing anti-secular sentiment calling for the summary prohibition of the golden ale. A compromise was found when alcoholic beverages were banned from non-touristic sites and during the month of Ramadan. But time was on Stella' s side.
Privatization and Modern Era
By successfully launching Egypt's first ever GDR financing in 1997, Ahram Beverages Company found itself at the center of media attention and at the vanguard of Egypt's move towards privatization. I had an assignment for the Financial Times to illustrate a story about the newly privatized Al Ahram Beverage Company (ABC), the ancestor to both Crown and Pyramid breweries and the company that produced Egypt’s flagship beer, Stella.
At the time, the Egyptian government was in the process of selling off many state-owned companies as a means to stimulate the economy. For ABC the timing of the sale could not have been better because the company was about to become 100 years old. There was a lot of buzz surrounding the sale of ABC to an international investment group led by Ahmed Zayat, a charismatic young Egyptian-American, who was about to shake up an institution that had been stagnant for decades.
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Zayat would shake up the horse racing world decades later when his horse, American Pharoah, won the Triple Crown in 2015, a feat that had not been accomplished since 1978. Despite those who had exaggerated Stella's demise, the golden froth is today the beacon of economic change. Another beer-making milestone achieved in time for Stella's 100th birthday.
Even though other locally made alcohol was widely available, Stella was a drink of choice, but nobody seemed to know how it was actually produced. Rumors persisted that untreated Nile water was the reason for the often-unpredictable quality of the beer. ABC’s headquarters was located in the original building on the outskirts of Cairo. The old majestic stone structure looked more like a palace than a brewery. The interior was dark and noisy as both man and antiquated machinery worked tirelessly to produce Egypt’s golden lager. Just like the economy, the brewery was about to get a major overhaul.
The days of an inflated workforce were coming to an end, as the latest technologies in beer making were about to be introduced. After I finished going around the plant photographing the different stages of production, I had an idea, which I wanted to discuss with the management. I was promptly taken to the office of Steven Keefer, the American financial adviser to the new CEO. I asked Keefer if there were any plans to celebrate ABC’s centennial, and expressed my interest in producing a small corporate book showcasing the history of the company. He immediately liked my idea and said it would fit in nicely with other planned events, but requested a formal proposal with a budget which he would pass on to Zayat for approval.
The following exhibition contains photographs and memorabilia from my personal collection showing the company as it evolved from the original Crown Brewery in Alexandria to a state of the art brewery in El Obour outside of Cairo, 100 years later. The accompanying text is written by Omar Foda, author of the upcoming book, Grand Plans in Glass Bottles: A Social, Economic and Technological History of Beer in Egypt 1880-1970.
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