Red Stripe Will Actually Be Made in Jamaica Again

Production is being moved from Pennsylvania back to Jamaica

Fresh off the heels of a class-action lawsuit in which it was accused of misleading customers about where its beer is actually produced, Red Stripe is shifting its production from the U.S. back to where it all began: Jamaica.

A suit filed in California last year against Diageo, the manufacturers of Red Stripe, alleged that the company used deceptive marketing tactics to dupe consumers into believing the beer was still imported from Jamaica. Though it is a historically Jamaican beer, Diageo moved the production of Red Stripe from Kingston to Pennsylvania in 2012.

That case was ultimately dismissed, but it seem the new owners of the company, Heineken, have taken note of the complaints: According to the Jamaica Observer, Heineken has “decided to revert to brewing the export product at the original source — the Red Stripe brewery in Kingston.”

The Observer reports that Red Stripe will resume exports to the U.S. from Jamaica next month, when it will employ 30 more people, and it “plans to employ another 300 when it completes a major upgrade of its brewery on Spanish Town Road in Kingston.”

Though the Red Stripe lawsuit was dismissed, other companies have gotten in hot water for similar tactics. In 2015, a judge ruled that beverage conglomerate AB InBev would have to pony up millions of dollars following a class-action lawsuit alleging it "tricked consumers into thinking Beck’s was a German beer”; Beck’s is actually produced in St. Louis, Missouri.

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