Cervecería Centro Americana (Gallo)

The brothers Mariano and Rafael Castillo Córdova founded Cervecería Centro Americana on 3 February 1886. Its first beer, of 1896, was called Lager Bier and had a cockerel on the label; drinkers found the name hard to say and asked for una Gallo, and the name stuck. Gallo, a pale lager of 5%, is the oldest beer brewed continuously in Guatemala. In France and the United States it sells as Famosa. The brewery paid Guatemala’s first Christmas bonus in 1927, before the law required one, and has sponsored the national cycling tour since 1957. The Castillo family’s group still runs it, and sells in six Central American and Caribbean countries and the United States.