Castle Lager is owned by AB InBev (Belgium, NYSE: BUD), which acquired the brand on 10 October 2016 from SABMiller, as part of a £79 billion deal that also included Aguila.[1][2] Before AB InBev, Castle Lager was owned by SABMiller to 2016.[2]
Castle Lager is South Africa's best-known beer, brewed since 1895 by a company founded to supply miners on the Witwatersrand, which became South African Breweries. AB InBev acquired the brand with SABMiller in 2016, and it remains a major sponsor of South African national sport.
What AB InBev's annual report says about Castle Lager
Sentences about Castle Lager from AB InBev's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
Castle Lager is popularly described as South Africa's national beer, first brewed in Johannesburg in 1895 using homegrown ingredients, giving it the iconic "somewhat dry, somewhat bitter, never sweet" taste. -44- Table of Contents Castle Lite was first brewed in South Africa in 1994 with a mission to provide the coldest and most refreshing lite beer on the South African market.
How often AB InBev names Castle Lager in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
AB InBev is a publicly listed company headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, founded in 2008. Brandtree records 21 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: BUD.
AB InBev is the largest brewer in the world, formed in 2008 when the Belgian-Brazilian InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch and enlarged again in 2016 by taking over SABMiller. Its beers are sold in about 150 countries.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 175 brands that began in South Africa.
12 of them (7%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Castle Lager among them.
AB InBev acquired SABMiller in one of the largest takeovers ever recorded, creating a brewer with roughly a quarter of the beer sold worldwide. Regulators in the United States, Europe, China and South Africa required extensive divestitures, including SABMiller's stake in MillerCoors and its European Peroni, Grolsch and Meantime brands.
The parent company of Castle Lager is AB InBev, a publicly listed company headquartered in Belgium.
Is Castle Lager South African or Belgian?
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Castle Lager originated in South Africa in 1895, but it is owned today by AB InBev, which is headquartered in Belgium. So Castle Lager is a South African-origin brand under Belgian ownership.
When did AB InBev buy Castle Lager?
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AB InBev completed its acquisition of Castle Lager on 10 October 2016, after announcing the deal on 11 November 2015. The deal, which also included Aguila, was valued at £79 billion (enterprise value).
Who owned Castle Lager before AB InBev?
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Before AB InBev, Castle Lager was owned by SABMiller until 2016.
Is Castle Lager still owned by AB InBev?
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Yes. As of 9 October 2026, Castle Lager is still owned by AB InBev. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (2) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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