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ENTITY · DRINK / BRAND

Red Stripe

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Brewed first at the Surrey Brewery in downtown Kingston in 1928, and not as the beer anyone now recognises: the original Red Stripe was a dark ale on British lines, too heavy for the climate it was sold in. The lager came in 1938, developed by Paul H. Geddes — son of the founder — with Bill Martindale, and it is the lager that became the national beer and the stubby bottle that appears in a thousand dancehall photographs.

Red Stripe's place in the music is sponsorship as much as consumption. It has backed Reggae Sumfest since 1993, which means that for three decades the biggest stage in Jamaican music has carried a beer's name, and the brand's money has been part of how that stage gets built.

Red Stripe, the stubby bottleGranstrom · Public domain · Source ↗

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Story · Well supportedThe bar in the dance: how liquor built, named and paid for the music

A brewery, a rum house and a tonic wine have shaped Jamaican music as surely as any studio — and what the dance drinks has changed twice, from a crate at a man's foot to bottles held up in the video light.

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Compiled and researched by The Jamaica Music Atlas music desk. The sources that informed it are credited above.

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