Cervecería Nacional (Panama)

Panamanian businessmen, among them the independence leader Manuel Espinosa Batista, founded the Panama Brewing and Refrigerating Company on 4 October 1909, and less than a year later launched Balboa, which the company calls the first Panamanian beer. Two rivals appeared in the late 1920s, one with Atlas, and on the eve of the Second World War the three merged as Cervecería Nacional. Colombia’s Bavaria bought it in 2001–02, and it passed with Bavaria into SABMiller and AB InBev. Atlas is now its leading brand, and since 2021 a solar farm at Pesé has supplied all the power for its brewing.