{"id":847539,"date":"2026-01-11T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=847539"},"modified":"2026-01-09T17:39:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:39:39","slug":"the-iconic-113-year-old-south-african-brand-that-made-a-huge-comeback-after-disappearing-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/847539\/the-iconic-113-year-old-south-african-brand-that-made-a-huge-comeback-after-disappearing-twice\/","title":{"rendered":"The iconic 113-year-old South African brand that made a huge comeback after disappearing twice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lion Lager is one of the oldest and most popular beer brands in South Africa, and one of SA Breweries\u2019 (SAB\u2019s) most successful products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lager began, however, as SAB\u2019s most fierce competitor in the first days of South African brewing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lion Lager was first produced at the Mariendahl Brewery, now the Newlands Brewery, by Swedish immigrant Anders Ohlsson, according to the Heritage Portal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohlsson was born near Christiania in Norway in 1841. He studied in Sweden and sailed to South Africa at the age of 23. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He quickly became a significant businessman, importing Swedish goods and later working as a trader in Damaraland, now Namibia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s oldest commercial brewing facility, Mariendahl, was built in 1859 by Jacob Letterstedt. Letterstedt died in 1862, however, and left the brewery to his daughter, Lydia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having made a success of himself, Ohlsson purchased all the breweries in Newlands, which were floated as a limited company; the Ohlsson Cape Breweries Ltd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to research from the University of Cape Town, all of Ohlsson\u2019s biographers state that he knew little to nothing about brewing itself when he took on this venture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breweries began producing ales, stouts and porters around 1881, or at the latest, in early 1882.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohlsson built the first lager brewery in 1901 and introduced a modern pasteurisation process that allowed the company to sell its lager at a cheap enough price for people of the average income to buy it, called Tickey beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Castle Breweries was formed in 1895, there was fierce competition in the beer industry. Between 1899 and 1902, Castle Lager went toe to toe with the already-established Ohlsson Lagers <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohlsson retired as managing director of the company in 1906 and was succeeded by his son, Axel Ohlsson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to SAB, after Anders Ohlsson died in 1912, his friends and family brewed a new lager in his honour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His nickname had been the Lion, and so the beer was named Lion Lager. It became a top-selling beer, competing with Castle Lager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fierce competition continued until 1956, when a merger took place between Ohlsson\u2019s Breweries, Castle Breweries and United Breweries to form the enormous South African Breweries group that exists today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise, fall and rise again of Lion Lager<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following the merger, Lion Lager grew to become one of SAB\u2019s most popular products in the 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lion was SAB\u2019s biggest seller in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, in the 1990s, its popularity slowly began to wane as sales of Castle Lager grew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to The Sunday Times, it is estimated that Lion\u2019s share of the market fell to below 3.5% of sales, and the beer was initially taken off the market in 2000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SAB attempted to bring Lion Lager back to the market in October 2000, and relaunched the beer as a lighter, lower-alcohol product with new packaging and advertising, attempting to appeal to a younger, female audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relaunch was ultimately unsuccessful, and Lion was again removed from the shelves in March 2003. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SAB said that Lion Lager continued to be a part of South African heritage and history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, Lion Lager was one of the top three brands that South Africans missed most, according to a Sunday Times Top Brands survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beer returned to shelves for a brief few weeks in 2007, when SAB brewed one million litres as a commemorative drink for the 2007 festive season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SAB retained the rights to brew the beer, and it reappeared in small batches periodically. This was until the company decided to bring the beer back permanently around 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A social media campaign was launched to appeal to \u201cmainly black, male, blue-collar workers aged 25-45 years old,\u201d according to Brand Management Company DNA Brand Architects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advertising campaign, along with a R10 promotion for Lion Lager quarts, was successful in bringing Lion back to the market as a key player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the relaunch campaign was running between October and November alone, SAB sold over 165,000 units of Lion Lager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beer can still be found at liquor shops across the country, cementing itself as one of the country\u2019s most loved beers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
How Lion Lager appears today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Kimberley Kersten<\/strong><\/a>. This article was first published by Newsday<\/strong><\/a> and republished with permission. Read the original article here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lion Lager is one of the oldest and most popular beer brands in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":847544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[24472,6699],"class_list":["post-847539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-lion-lager","tag-sab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847545,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847539\/revisions\/847545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}