Beer came late to Belize. The Maya of the region drank balché, a mildly alcoholic drink made by soaking the bark of the tree Lonchocarpus violaceus in honey and water, which the Spanish banned after the conquest. British loggers won the right to cut logwood between the Hondo and Belize rivers under the Treaty of Versailles of 1783, and their Settlement in the Bay of Honduras was declared the Crown colony of British Honduras in 1862. Before Belikin, most Belizeans drank imported Guinness stout or Heineken.

The first brewery was the work of the Bowen family of Belize City. Eric Bowen's soft-drink firm Bowen and Bowen had held the Coca-Cola franchise since the early 1960s, and his son Barry Bowen talked him into a 50-50 partnership to build a brewery: Belize Brewing Company was founded in 1969. A consultants' feasibility study said the country was too small to support one, but Cervecería Hondureña of Honduras put money into it and became the majority shareholder. The brewhouse was a second-hand copper plant built in 1927, moved to Belize and installed in 1970; it ran until 2000. Production began in 1971 with Belikin Beer and Belikin Stout, the name a Maya phrase usually translated as road to the east, and the People's United Party government, in the age of import substitution, raised the tax on imported beer, which moved drinkers to Belikin. Barry Bowen bought his father's shares in 1977 and the Honduran shares in 1981, the year of independence, and the company became wholly Belizean. German brewmasters ran it for its first forty years.

Belikin had one local rival. Charger beer, made by the brothers Arturo and Orlando Matus from about 1972, was seriously challenging it by 1975, though Belikin Stout stayed ahead; Charger failed, and by 2010 Belikin was the only beer made in the country, while beer from Mexico and Guatemala could not be imported. Barry Bowen headed Bowen and Bowen from 1981 until 26 February 2010, when the plane he was piloting crashed at San Pedro; his son Michael Bowen took over, and in 2011-12 Nolan Michael became the first Belizean brewmaster. The range is Belikin Beer (4.8%), Lighthouse Lager (4.2%), Belikin Stout, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout brewed under licence and seasonal Chocolate and Sorrel Stouts; Belikin Light (3.8%, 105 calories against 144) was launched on 27 June 2017. Belize Brewing has imported Heineken, Amstel and Red Stripe since 2016, and on 11 May 2018 Heineken bought a minority stake in it.

Craft brewing has been slow; a travel guide says the law makes it hard to open or keep open a brewery or brewpub. Island Time Brewing of San Pedro was selling Barefoot Blonde Ale in 2014 and has since closed. Hobbs Brewing Company of New Hampshire began brewing at Placencia in 2019 (Wildcat IPA, Hummingbird Belizean Golden Ale). On 15 January 2021 Belize Brewing opened Di Bruwry near the airport, a seven-figure investment: a micro-brewery with batches of about 1,000 litres, a restaurant and a visitor centre, planned since 2017. The Two-5 Brewing label of small-batch beers with Belizean ingredients such as fever grass and soursop is sold at Belikin's own venues. In January 2021 the Caribbean International Brewery at Carmelita near Orange Walk Town, which says it was founded in November 2014 and belongs to three businessmen from Asia, launched Pirate Beer, a 4.3% lager in 251 ml bottles. BeerAdvocate lists four breweries in Belize in 2026.