Cypriot beer, from Leon to KEO

On a July evening in Limassol, the first thing half of Cyprus orders on the terrace isn’t wine, it’s a cold beer. The island has two of its own, with very different stories, and knowing them saves you from defaulting to the same international lager you drink at home. What follows comes from the brewers themselves and the Famagusta tourism board, not from tasting notes I’ve made up.

Leon, the original

Leon is the oldest beer in Cyprus. Its website says it was first brewed in 1937, at the island’s first brewery, and the Famagusta tourism board adds that it was the only local beer until KEO appeared in 1951. In 1962 production stopped, because the company behind it had taken on the Carlsberg licence, and Leon returned in 2003 with its original recipe. Today it’s a 4.5 per cent lager with three ingredients, water, barley malt and hops, and the nicest detail is that the hops are grown in Kyperounta, up in Pitsilia.

KEO, Limassol’s brewery

KEO is a listed company founded in 1927 that moved to Limassol in 1939. Its beer launched on 17 May 1951, a pilsner-style lager that, according to the brand, Czech brewmasters designed using traditional Czech recipes. It’s bottled fresh and unpasteurised, and in March 1987 it won gold at the world bottled lager competition in Burton-on-Trent, which British drinkers will know as the old capital of English brewing. The brewery, with its lettered tower, sits in the city itself and can turn out more than 30,000 hectolitres a month.

KEO isn’t only beer. It runs wineries in the Limassol wine villages, makes wine and distils its own zivania, so its name turns up on most drinks lists. If you’re staying in town, the background is in Limassol.

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A brewer that also makes wine

What surprises most visitors is that KEO is as much a winery as a brewery. Besides its Limassol plant, it runs three wineries in the Krasochoria, on the lower slopes of the Troodos. Mallia and Pera Pedi were among the first built on the island, and Laona, a small winery founded in 1986 near Arsos at around 1,000 metres, joined the group in 1993. All KEO wines are now made at the Mallia estate, where the company says it researches native grape varieties. If wine tempts you more than beer, the routes through that area are in the Limassol wine villages and the village itself in Arsos. For me it’s the clearest sign that in Cyprus beer and wine don’t compete, they share the table.

Which Cypriot beers are there beyond the classic lager?

KEO has been widening its range. KEO Light is an all-malt lager at 3.5 per cent with 29 calories per 100 ml. Its craft line, the Cyprus Craft Collection, started with two unpasteurised 5 per cent beers, Alepou, a hop-forward IPA with a bitter finish, and Lagos, a lager with citrus aromas. If I had to pick one for summer, I’d try Lagos with grilled fish, because it’s the furthest from the standard lager.

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How I’d drink it

With food. In Cyprus, beer goes with grilled meat, halloumi and meze as readily as wine does, and Leon itself is marketed around barbecues, beaches and family tables. In a taverna I’d have it on draught if they pour it and keep the bottles for the beach. Leon’s own serving tips are worth borrowing too, a clean glass that’s ideally been washed by hand rather than in a dishwasher, a head of 15 to 20 mm, and beer that goes into the fridge once and stays there rather than being chilled, warmed and chilled again. For the rest of the table, see Cypriot food, and for the Sunday barbecue, Cypriot souvla.

Beer festivals

Limassol Tourism listed two in 2026. MedFest, in its eighth year, filled the Linopetra high school stadium in Limassol from 24 to 28 June, with concerts every night from 19:00 and hundreds of Greek and international labels. And Pelendri, up in the hills, held its own festival from 31 July to 2 August, with music and beer as the excuse. Neither festival had announced 2027 dates by early October 2026. The island’s calendar is in Cyprus events.

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