ABSTRACT
The Central African beer industry affords a valuable case study in the commercialization of an indigenous product and of the emergence of an incipient developing-country multinational. The fledgling Third World multinational was short-lived, however, because the sorghum beer industry was penetrated successively by large scale British and South African based international capital. The production of sorghum beer in Central Africa evolved along different organizational channels to that of the European-type lager beers. Prior to the adoption of the municipal brewing system in Central Africa, the sorghum beer industry was dominated by the traditional woman household brewer. In terms of the geography of the sorghum beer industry in Central Africa, the event of greatest significance was the first expansion of Heinrich outside of its Northern Rhodesia core area of operations. Lonrho’s entry into the sorghum beer industry during 1963 occurred at a time of increasing flux in the political and economic complexion of Central Africa.
