Tunisia drinks more beer per capita than any other country in the Arab world. That fact surprises people — it shouldn't. Tunisia has been brewing since 1889, when a young engineer named Baldauff founded a refrigeration company in Tunis that soon discovered beer was more profitable than ice. By 1925 that company had become the Société Frigorifique et Brasserie de Tunis — SFBT — and by the time Pierre Castel's Brasseries et Glacières Internationales took a controlling stake in the privatisation of the 1990s, SFBT's Celtia lager had become the undisputed national beer of Tunisia. Ten litres per person per year, the highest consumption in the Maghreb. Tourism helps — seven million foreign visitors annually, most of them European, most of them expecting a cold beer at the hotel bar.Heineken had been watching that market for years. The green bottle was available in Tunisian duty-free shops but nowhere else — not in supermarkets, not in restaurants, not in the bars along the Hammamet seafront where French and German tourists sat in the heat. In June 2004, Heineken struck a licensing deal with Castel that allowed SFBT to brew Heineken at its Tunis brewery on Route de l'Hôpital Militaire. It was a pragmatic arrangement — Castel had the capacity, the distribution network, and the relationships with the Tunisian government. Heineken had the brand. For four years, the green bottle was made in Tunis by Castel's people. It was the only way in.But licensing your flagship brand to a competitor is never a long-term strategy, and by 2006 Heineken had found its own path. On 20 December 2006, Heineken announced the acquisition of 49.99% of the shares in the Société de Production et de Distribution des Boissons — SPDB — a company controlled by the Boujbel Group, a Tunisian family conglomerate with deep roots in the country's hotel and tourism sector. The joint venture would build a brand new brewery in Grombalia, 30 kilometres southeast of Tunis, at a total investment of €27 million. The Castel licence ended. SONOBRA — Société Nouvelle de Brasserie — was born.The brewery was inaugurated on 28 October 2008. Golden Brau, a mainstream lager brand with origins tracing to a 1632 Austrian brewery, was the first beer off the line — a deliberate choice to establish SONOBRA as a local brewer, not just a vehicle for a Dutch import. Heineken Lager followed in January 2009, now brewed locally for the first time under full Heineken oversight rather than a licence arrangement. The initial capacity was 200,000 hectolitres — in a market estimated at 1.1 million hectolitres annually, with Castel's SFBT holding around 90% market share. SONOBRA was the challenger, backed by Boujbel's distribution network and Heineken's portfolio.The brewery at Grombalia has since expanded its range considerably. Berber, a 100% Tunisian brand, launched in 2014. The Sun Set range of hard seltzers followed. Sahara Gold, Elbeya, and other local variants now sit alongside the international portfolio. Tunisia remains a joint venture — Heineken holds 49.99%, the Boujbel Group holds the majority — and SONOBRA remains the number two brewer in a market still dominated by Celtia. But in a country where beer has been brewed since the French colonial era and consumed with genuine enthusiasm ever since, the red star has found a permanent home.
