Before industrial beer the drink of Honduras was chicha. The Pech people held the shaman's ritual Kesh with chicha made of yuca, and the drink is still kept for family occasions. Brewing began on the north coast, at La Ceiba, where a group of Hondurans and foreigners formed the Compañía Industrial Ceibeña to bring in drinking water, electric power, ice and soft drinks. President Francisco Bertrand allowed it to brew beer by Decree No. 98 of 25 February 1915, and in 1916, with the machinery installed, it began to brew SalvaVida, sold as "la cerveza nacional".
In 1928 a rival opened in San Pedro Sula, Cervecería Unión, with the brand Ulúa. To stop competing the two companies merged in 1935 as Cervecería Hondureña, which ran La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula as divisions. In the capital Cervecería Tegucigalpa had been set up in 1930 with German partners and the brand Imperial, so that SalvaVida led on the north coast and Imperial in the centre and south. In the Second World War the German partners sold their shares to Cervecería Hondureña, the two plants worked apart until 1965, and then merged into the one brewing company of Honduras that exists today. The beer Nacional, in a gold can with two lions and a blue and white ribbon, was taken off the market in the 1990s.
In 2001 Cervecería Hondureña joined SABMiller, which held 99 per cent of it in 2014; since the AB InBev takeover of SABMiller in October 2016 it has been an AB InBev company, and it also bottles Coca-Cola, Sprite and Tropical. Its beers are SalvaVida, Imperial, Barena, launched in 2004, and Port Royal, with Corona, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra from the group; in 2009 Barena, Imperial and Port Royal won grand gold medals at Monde Selection and SalvaVida a gold. The main plant stands in San Pedro Sula on the road to Puerto Cortés, the port the raw materials come through; in 2017 its beer plant had ranked first of 80 plants in a global manufacturing programme for five years, and in June 2017 AB InBev announced a 25 million dollar enlargement.
Craft brewing came late and stayed small. The Czech artist Jiri Maska opened the Bay Islands Brewery on Roatán in 2004, in a building like a Spanish fort; it closed after power cuts, a heavy pilsner and legal challenges from the big brewer. D&D Brewery at Los Naranjos by Lake Yojoa, called the first microbrewery of the country, began to supply San Pedro Sula in 2013. Honduras Brewing Co. in Tegucigalpa, with room for 360,000 litres a year, became the leading craft firm; Gecko Brewing Co. started in San Pedro Sula in 2016, Roatán Island Brewing Co. in 2019, and Cervecería La20 in San Pedro Sula marked its seventh year in February 2026. A trade survey of 2019 counted about ten craft breweries in the country, against more than 100 in Costa Rica.
The company says it employs 3,300 people, serves 85,000 customers from 16 distribution centres and accounts for 21.7 per cent of its manufacturing GDP. The union STIBYS struck from 7 December 2024, stopping the plants and the distribution centres, and beer and soft drinks ran short in the Christmas season; on 19 December, after 13 days, a new collective contract was signed. In 2026 Cervecería Hondureña received the Biodiversity Badge of the foundation Fundahrse for its conservation work, among it the programme for the Merendón mountain above San Pedro Sula.
