Stella Artois

Stella Artois comes from Leuven, Belgium, a city where beer was already being brewed by 1366 — the year printed on the label. The Den Hoorn brewery appears clearly in the records in 1466. In 1708, Sébastien Artois was admitted to the Leuven brewers' guild as a master brewer, and in 1717 he bought Den Hoorn, which then took his name.

Stella itself came much later. The name was registered in January 1926 and, at the end of that year, the beer was launched as a Christmas gift to the city: stella is Latin for star, a nod to the Christmas star. Its success made it a year-round beer, and in 1964 exports to other European countries began. In 1987 Artois joined Piedboeuf, the maker of Jupiler, to form Interbrew; in 2004, the merger of Interbrew and AmBev created InBev, the forerunner of today's AB InBev, which owns the brand. In Brazil, AmBev launched Stella Artois in 2005, starting in São Paulo.