Beer came late to the Ottoman lands: commercial brewing began only in the last decades of the empire, in Istanbul and Izmir. The best known firm was started by the Swiss brothers Adolf and Walter Bomonti at Feriköy in Istanbul in 1890 (other sources say 1888 or 1894), first brewing top-fermented ale; by 1894 five breweries worked in the capital. In 1902 the Bomontis moved to the site in the Şişli quarter that still carries their name, where a German brewmaster taught lager brewing; the first Pilsner came in 1908 from a plant of 70,000 hectolitres a year with 350 workers. The London-based Nectar company opened a brewery at Büyükdere in 1909, and in 1912 the two firms merged as Bomonti-Nectar, with beer gardens from Thrace to Eskişehir. In Smyrna the Aidin brewery ran from 1912 to 1928.

In the republic the state alcohol monopoly, Tekel, ran the old breweries. Bomonti-Nectar came under Tekel in the 1930s (sources give 1934 and 1938) as the Istanbul Tekel Beer Factory, which reached 37 million litres in 1976; Tekel Birası, first brewed in 1890, was its brand. A second state brewery and malt house, designed in 1936-1937 for the Atatürk Forest Farm in Ankara, went to Tekel after 1938. The Bomonti plant stopped brewing in 1991.

Private brewing began in 1969. Anadolu Efes, the brewing arm of the Anadolu Group of the Özilhan and Yazıcı families (the company dates from 1966), started Efes Pilsen at two plants, in Istanbul and İzmir. Türk Tuborg, founded in 1967 at Pınarbaşı, İzmir, as a joint venture of Carlsberg and Yaşar Holding and the first Tuborg brewery outside Denmark, began production in the same year. Efes has led the market since the 1980s: it made Turkey's first canned beer in 1986, took over the assets and the Marmara brand of Toros Biracılık in 1998, and added Miller Genuine Draft (2000), Beck's (2002) and Foster's (2005) under licence. In 2000 Türk Tuborg sold 1.6 million hectolitres, a 22% share of a market of 7.2 million, and Tuborg was about 70% of its sales. Carlsberg raised its holding from 2.24% to 50.01% in 2001 and sold its 95.6% stake to Israel's CBC Group in 2008, with Carlsberg and some Tuborg brands staying on licence.

Tekel's alcohol business was privatised in 2004, and Tekel Birası went to MEY İçki. Efes bought the brand in August 2009, but the Council of State stopped the sale in February 2010 on competition grounds, and in 2010 Efes put the old formula on the market as Bomonti, which it still brews. The old Bomonti brewery has stood idle since 1991, and since 2015 part of it has been an arts and entertainment venue, the Bomontiada.

Two groups brew nearly all Turkish beer. Efes sold 6.2 million hectolitres in Türkiye in 2025, slightly less than in 2024; it brews at Adana, Ankara and İzmir, with malt plants at Afyon and Konya (Çumra) and a hops plant at Pazaryeri, Bilecik. It stopped brewing at Lüleburgaz in 2014 and at Istanbul Merter on 22 May 2017. Türk Tuborg brews and malts at Işıkkent in İzmir. Craft beer began in 2011 in most accounts, with Gara Guzu, a couple's microbrewery at Muğla; Bosphorus Brewing, Knidos and Torch in Istanbul, Trokya in Edirne and Pablo in Bodrum followed, and BeerAdvocate lists some two dozen entries in 2026. On the Antalya coast the Süral Group of Manavgat brews Perge Pilsner in a plant that Huppmann built for a hotelier, with 100,000 hectolitres a year to start. With its results for the second quarter of 2026 Efes cut its 2026 beer volume forecast to a small decline, because demand in Türkiye was weaker.