On 14 July 1949, the Nigerian Brewery Limited produced its first bottle of Star lager at Iganmu, Lagos. Until this point Nigeria had relied on imported beer (bringing in 2,387,681 gallons in 1949) as the colony had no substantial manufacturing sector. Historian Simon Heap noted that in 1950 the sector accounted for only 0.45% of GNP, ‘the smallest proportion of any country in the world producing data’ (Heap, 1996, 70). The colonial economy had instead been founded on commerce, and as import liquor duties had traditionally helped to fund its administration, the government had little interest in home production or in promoting industry through subsidies or tariff protection.

The immediate post-war period saw the introduction of the ‘Ten Year Plan of Development and Welfare for Nigeria’ in 1946 and an increasing attempt by the British administration to establish import-substitution industries in Nigeria. Nigeria already had two successful import substitution industries, in The West African Soap Company and British-American Tobacco, which had run a factory in Nigeria since 1933, but the administration now sought to increase domestic production (Heap, 1996, 80). Jeremiah I. Dibua argues that this policy was ‘essentially a market protection strategy’, as the United States now championed ‘an open door policy in the colonies’ so that her firms would be able to compete for these markets (Dibua, 2006, 77). Simon Heap emphasises the influence of the war in instigating this policy shift. ‘It would take’, Heap argued, ‘the drastic supply shortages experienced during the Second World War for far more positive colonial policies on the advantages to be gained by encouraging an alcohol import substitution industry’ (Heap, 1996, 84). 

Heap further argues that the establishment of a Nigerian brewery was not a ‘conscious effort to develop the economy’ but rather an attempt ‘by some foreign merchant firms to protect and promote their interest in the growing domestic market’ (Heap, 1996, 82). Nigeria Brewery Limited was formed by the leading beer importers in 1946 and it was these importers – such as John Holt and Company and UAC (United Africa Company) – that developed this domestic production. By 1955 Nigerian Breweries Ltd was producing 1,762,000 gallons of beer, although it still imported over three times this amount. Within another ten years, it would produce almost 13 million gallons and import less than 500,000 gallons, so that, as Simon Heap recognised, within twenty years, Nigeria had ‘almost entirely substituted one of its previously largest import trades’ (Heap, 1996, 83, 85).

Beer at Its Best was produced by the Lagos-based company Niger Films. Owned until the mid-1980s by John Williamson, Niger Films was a British company, which produced advertising and documentary films during the 1950s (Balogun, 1987, 47). Star Lager was launched with the advertising campaign ‘Ah, Star – Beer at its Best’ and was one of the first brands in Nigeria to be advertised in the cinema (Newswatch, 1989, 28).