Banks beer

From a rum shop to a brewery

The company behind the beer grew out of a family business. In the 1840s Jose Gomes D’Aguiar founded a rum business that expanded into a chain of liquor shops. In 1896 his four sons formed the D’Aguiar Bros partnership and bought the Demerara Ice House, whose initials, DIH, survive in the company’s name today.

Peter D’Aguiar took charge of the family firm in 1934, at the age of 22, and steered it towards making soft drinks and rum. In 1955 he added something new: Banks Breweries Limited, set up as a public company rather than a family one. The company’s own history describes it as the first public company with widespread ownership.

Thirst Park and Banks DIH

In 1966 the family firm, D’Aguiar Bros, became a public company too, and in 1969 it merged with Banks Breweries to form Banks DIH Limited. The same year the head office moved to Thirst Park, where, according to the company, a 13.2-acre production complex and head office were built.

The brewery there has been modernised in stages. Kaieteur News reported a brewhouse upgrade with additional fermenting tanks among the company’s 2012 works, and in 2013 Stabroek News described the installation of 14 new unitanks, each able to handle both fermentation and maturation, with engineers from Germany working alongside Banks DIH staff.

A further step came in January 2026, when President Irfaan Ali commissioned a new plant on the East Bank of Demerara. Guyana’s Department of Public Information reported the chairman, Clifford Reis, as saying the company could now brew 800,000 cases a month. A canning line followed: Banks DIH and NCN Guyana both describe a line at Thirst Park that can fill about 17,000 cans an hour, and Banks Beer and its stablemate GT Beer now come in cans as well as bottles.

Two Banks beers

D’Aguiar also set up a sister brewery, Banks (Barbados) Breweries, which opened in 1961. The Guyanese and Barbadian companies soon went separate ways and for decades each marketed its own Banks Beer, a split that led to problems over who owned the brand. In 2005 they came together again, buying shares in each other and agreeing to market their beer abroad jointly.

The Barbados beer is a pale lager; Paste magazine, reviewing it in 2014, put its strength at 4.7 per cent. In Guyana, Banks Beer remains the flagship of Banks DIH, which also makes soft drinks and rum.

At the races and at the party

Banks DIH has long tied its drinks to public events. Kaieteur News in 2016 reported the Guyana Cup organisers calling it among the most consistent sponsors of horse racing in Guyana, and Stabroek News reported it as the beverage sponsor of the 2018 Guyana Cup meeting at the Rising Sun Turf Club in Berbice, with the trophy handed over at Thirst Park.

The company presented its new cans in the same spirit: its brew master, Matthew Kendall, told NCN they suit sporting events, outdoor activities and social gatherings. In Emblem World, Banks Beer sits in the Guyana drink collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.