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| 1739–1810 |  Viceroyalty of New Granada (Virreinato de la Nueva Granada): the Spanish crown's jurisdiction over northern South America with its capital at Santa Fe de Bogotá, created on 27 May 1717, suspended in 1723 and restored in 1739, until the independence movement suspended it in 1810 |
| 20 Jul 1810 | the junta of Santa Fe de Bogotá, formed on 20 July 1810 (the Grito de Independencia), breaks with the Viceroyalty of New Granada; the first state forms (the United Provinces of New Granada, 1811-1816) are short-lived, and the Republic of Colombia, today's state under its first name, is proclaimed by the Congress of Angostura in 1819 |
| 1819–1831 |  Republic of Colombia, called Gran Colombia: proclaimed by the Congress of Angostura in 1819, in force under the Constitution of Cúcuta of 1821 and formally abolished in 1831; its flag was the yellow, blue and red tricolour with the broad yellow stripe, with the arms on it in some variants |
| 1831–1858 |  Republic of New Granada (República de la Nueva Granada), the unitary republic that came out of the dissolution of Gran Colombia; the flag of red, blue and yellow vertical stripes was adopted on 9 May 1834 |
| 1858–1861 | Granadine Confederation (Confederación Granadina), the federal republic named by the Constitution of 22 May 1858; it kept the vertical tricolour until 26 November 1861 |
| 1861–1886 | United States of Colombia (Estados Unidos de Colombia): styled United States of New Granada from July 1861 and United States of Colombia in November 1861, with the name confirmed by Congress on 3 February 1863 and the federation of nine sovereign states set up by the Constitution of Rionegro of 8 May 1863; the horizontal yellow, blue and red flag was adopted on 26 November 1861 |
| 1886– | Republic of Colombia (República de Colombia): the unitary republic of the Constitution of 1886, with the same flag |
Beer came to Colombia with the Spanish: a Uniandes history says the first barley arrived in 1539, but long after that the everyday drink was chicha, the maize beer of the Andean peoples. The first recorded brewery of Bogotá was founded under Gran Colombia by a German named Mayer (one history dates it to 1826); the Englishman Cantrell took it over, and in 1834 the firm Martínez y Galinee bought it. Small breweries followed in Bogotá, Medellín, Ibagué and Bucaramanga, and a Danish immigrant brought European machinery for the first lager in 1887.
The modern industry began with Leo Kopp, a German trader whose firm Kopp y Castello was formed in Bogotá on 14 June 1879. Documents found in Socorro, from the late 1880s, show that the Kopps ran a brewery there, in a house on the main square, before the business moved to Bogotá. On 4 April 1889 the firm registered the purchase of a plot in Bogotá for a brewery, the date Bavaria counts as its founding. It became Bavaria Kopp's Deutsche Bierbrauerei in 1890, the brewery opened on 28 May 1891, and Pilsener Bier, Salvatore Bier, Bock Bier, Doppel-Stout and Lager went on sale on 1 June.
Bavaria then took in or outlasted its rivals. Cervecería Antioqueña of Medellín launched Pilsen in 1904, still sold today; La Pola, Bavaria's first popular beer, came in December 1911 for the centenary of independence, and Cervecería Barranquilla y Bolívar put Águila on the market in 1913. Costeña followed in Barranquilla in 1934. In 1930 Bavaria joined with the Cervecería Continental of Medellín, and from 1943 its shares were in Colombian hands. Law 34 of 28 October 1948 allowed fermented drinks only in individual sealed glass bottles from 1 January 1949, which in practice ended home-made chicha. In January 1973 Bavaria opened a new industrial complex on Avenida Boyacá and left its old site in the centre of Bogotá. In 1975 the Santo Domingo group, Bavaria's main shareholder, bought 75% of Cervecería Andina, founded in Bogotá in 1945 by the Puyana brothers and by then the second brewery of the country; its Bogotá plant later brewed Águila as Cervecería del Litoral until 1999.
The Ardila Lülle group, owner of Postobón, built a brewery at Tocancipá in 1996 for Leona, Cristal Oro, Perla and Cachorra, and sold it to Bavaria in 2004. In July 2005 the Santo Domingo family sold its 75% of Bavaria, which then held 99% of the Colombian beer market, to SABMiller in a deal worth USD 7.8 billion; AB InBev took over SABMiller in October 2016, and Bavaria is now part of it.
Craft beer is recent: the Cerveza de la Casa began at Guarne in 1992, and 3 Cordilleras opened in Medellín in 2008, selling only kegs at first. After a 2016 offer from Central Cervecera it joined that company's portfolio. Craft beer had 0.45% of the market in 2024 (0.32% in 2020). Central Cervecera, formed by Postobón and Chile's CCU (announced in November 2014), opened its Sesquilé plant (3 million hl, USD 400 million) in May 2019 and brews Andina there; in 2026 it holds about 7.2% of the market and on 28 August launched Mítica, a lager developed with 3 Cordilleras. Bavaria's brands include Águila, Poker, Club Colombia and Costeña, and in February 2026 its new Cervecería del Atlántico at Palmar de Varela, with about USD 500 million invested, was in its pre-operating phase.
