Guatemala drank little beer for most of its history. In the colonial era wine and above all chicha, a cane spirit, were preferred, and beer was hardly made; early in the 18th century the Captaincy General had shops called estancos cerveceros that sold it. After independence (15 September 1821) the trade grew slowly: in 1854, under Rafael Carrera, more licences were granted, and the German Herman Bendfelt kept a beer shop on the Calle del Incienso that was advertised from 1857 as the Cervecería Inglesa. Until about 1875 beer was brewed from maize, and only then were barley and wheat added. By about 1880 there were more than 180 licences and small breweries supplied the poorer districts of the capital.

Cervecería Centro Americana was founded in March 1886 by the brothers Mariano and Rafael Castillo Córdova who, the historian Paul Dosal says, imported the machinery and raw materials without paying duty. Its main beer, first called Lager Bier, carried a rooster on the label; drinkers called it Gallo, the name has been printed on the label since 1926, and the company dates Gallo to 1896. On 15 September 1929 it bought the Cervecería Nacional, founded on 14 November 1895 in Quetzaltenango by Gustavo Kiene, maker of the Bock Bier that is now Cabro. By 1946, when the brewery built the chapel that stands at its centre, it held an absolute monopoly. Victoria followed in 1996, and the Castillo Hermanos group that grew around the brewery now claims more than 75 brands in 35 countries.

The monopoly ended in 2003. Two Castillo cousins left the family firm and began distributing AmBev beer through the Pepsi bottler CBC, owned by another branch of the family; AmBev and CBC built a brewery at Teculután, Zacapa, and brought out Brahva. AmBev became InBev in 2004 and AB InBev in 2008. A price war began in 2011, and AmBev made at least two offers for Cervecería Centro Americana, which changed its bylaws to make selling shares harder. Reports of 2014 to 2016 give Gallo about 80 percent of the market, down from nearly all of it; the brewery then made 2.5 million hectolitres a year, half a million for export. Ambev says it held 30 percent in 2013 and again in 2023, when it put its investment at more than US$100 million in five years.

Craft beer came late. In July 2015 Prensa Libre wrote that Guatemala had joined the regional craft trend only a year earlier, led by home brewers. Antigua Cerveza, started by the Georgia Tech alumni Jorge Guzmán, Taylor Virgil and Jack Spehn, got its brewing licence in 2016 and began selling in February 2017 as the first brewery in Antigua Guatemala; by 2022 it brewed more than 250,000 litres a year for four taprooms and about 150 restaurants and bars. Cervecería 14, near Antigua, dates itself to 2018. In May 2018 Cervecería Centro Americana opened its own craft brewery, El Zapote Brewing Company, on its finca in zona 2: US$6.5 million (Q48 million), a capacity of 12,000 hectolitres and six beers at first, seven fixed styles and a new beer every three months by 2023. Wikipedia lists more than a dozen craft breweries, among them 100Goles, Quiscalus, Xamán, Quetzal Brewing and Ixbalanqué.

On 2 March 2026 Ambev Guatemala said it had spent more than US$15 million in three years on its Teculután plant, planned more than US$20 million for 2026 and 2027, and would run the plant on solar electricity during 2026. Its list is now mostly AB InBev brands, Corona, Modelo, Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois, Leffe, Hoegaarden and Busch Light beside Brahva, and part of it is exported to El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. Castillo Hermanos says its Super24 chain of more than 500 shops already sells about 10 percent of its beer volume. Guatemalans drank only about 42 litres of beer a head in 2010, one of the lowest rates in the world outside the Muslim countries.