Desnoes and Geddes Limited (D&G) is a

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...

and beverage producer, best known for

Red Stripe Red Stripe is a 4.7% ABV pale lager brewed by Desnoes & Geddes in Jamaica and the Netherlands. Since 2015 Red Stripe has also been brewed in the United Kingdom by Heineken under licence from Desnoes & Geddes. It was first introduced in 1928 fr ...

lager. It was formed in 1918 by Eugene Peter Desnoes and Thomas Hargreaves Geddes who combined their two shops into one business, originally producing soft drinks and distributing imported alcohol, and later opening the Surrey Brewery in Kingston.

Products

D&G produces one of Jamaica's best-known exports,

beer Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the ...

, and also exports Old Jamaica

Ginger Beer Traditional ginger beer is a sweetened and carbonated, usually non-alcoholic beverage. Historically it was produced by the natural fermentation of prepared ginger spice, yeast and sugar. Modern ginger beers are often mass production, manufactur ...

. It brews other malt beverages for the local market under the brand names Red Stripe Light, Dragon Stout,

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

(nonalcoholic),

Smirnoff Ice Smirnoff (; ) is a brand of vodka owned and produced by the British company Diageo. The Smirnoff brand began with a vodka distillery founded in Moscow by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov (1831–1898), but its modern incarnation traces back to the ...

Guinness Guinness () is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at Guinness Brewery, St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in the 18th century. It is now owned by the British-based Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic bever ...

, and

Heineken Heineken Lager Beer (), or simply Heineken (), is a Dutch pale lager beer with 5% alcohol by volume produced by the Dutch brewing company Heineken N.V. Heineken beer is sold in a green bottle with a red star. History On 15 February 1864, ...

Dragon Stout

Dragon Stout is a

stout beer Stout is a type of dark beer that is generally warm fermented, such as dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout and imperial stout. Stout is a type of ale. The first known use of the word "stout" for beer is in a document dated 1677 in the Egerto ...

first introduced in 1920 and relaunched in 1961. Its brewing process utilises European, caramel, and roasted malts, and dark brown sugar. It has an

ABV Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as alc/vol or ABV) is a common measure of the amount of alcohol contained in a given alcoholic beverage. It is defined as the volume the ethanol in the liquid would take if separated from the rest of the solution, ...

of 7.5%. Along with Red Stripe, it was included in the book ''1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die''.

Ownership

Only a small portion of D&G's shares are publicly traded. From 1993 until autumn 2015, Guinness and Smirnoff owner

Diageo Diageo plc ( ) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in London, England. It is a major distributor of Scotch whisky and other spirits and operates from 132 sites around the world ...

owned a controlling stake in the company. In October 2015, Dutch brewer Heineken acquired Diageo's stake taking its stake to 73.3%. It stated it would launch a full bid for the shares it did not own. D&G also made soft drinks, including the popular Ting, but sold that division to

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

in 1999. The same year it sold its spirits and wine division to

J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. J. Wray and Nephew Ltd. is a distiller, blender, and bottler of rum, originating and operating in Kingston, Jamaica. History In 1825, John Wray opened "The Shakespeare Tavern" in Kingston. In 1860, Wray brought in his nephew Charles James Ward ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desnoes and Geddes Heineken brands Beer in the Caribbean Jamaican brands Companies based in Kingston, Jamaica Food and drink companies established in 1918 Jamaican companies established in 1918