Beer came to Trinidad from Britain. Carib's own history credits the British with bringing it to the Caribbean in the 1880s, and a law regulating brewing is recorded as early as August 1899, but for decades the beer drunk on the islands was imported. Trinidad was Spanish until the British took it in 1797, and Tobago joined it as one colony on 1 January 1889. The first commercial brewing came just after the First World War, when a Mr Walters set up the Trinidad Brewing Company, with a capacity of 3,000 to 5,000 hectolitres a year. It made Royal Lion Ale, Royal Extra Stout and Black Velvet Stout, and in 1954 registered the trademark Pola Beer.

The brewery that came to dominate the market was planned after the Second World War. Sir Gerald Wight, chairman of Alston and Company, wanted to broaden an economy that lived on sugar and oil, and in July 1947 the Caribbean Development Company Limited (CDC) was formed with him as chairman, to build a brewery and a glassworks. The brewery, at Champs Fleurs on the Eastern Main Road, started with a payroll of seven. Carib Lager went on sale in September 1950, and the imported beers began to disappear. One account says CDC was split in 1955 into Carib Brewery Ltd. and Carib Glassworks Ltd.; in 1957 it bought Walters's plant and brands, which left it the only brewer in Trinidad. Royal Extra Stout comes from that purchase. The Pola Beer mark passed to CDC in 1961 and stayed unused until December 1993, when a small run was brewed during a court case over the rival mark Polar.

Growth followed. In 1972 the brewery bought more land and brewhouse equipment and passed 250,000 hectolitres a year; Carib dates its lager Stag to the same year, though its older history lists Stag among the brands launched after 1983. Malta Carib, a non-alcoholic malt drink, came in 1973 and Shandy Carib in 1985, and in 1987 equipment from Steinecker of Germany took output past one million hectolitres. Guinness, Mackeson, Heineken and later Coors Light are brewed or bottled under licence. The owner is ANSA McAL, the Sabga family's group: Alston and McEnearney united as McEnearney Alstons in 1976, and when Angostura bought a majority in 1986 it became ANSA McAL. Carib Brewery St Kitts and Nevis opened in 1997 and Carib Brewery Grenada in 2002.

Carib then looked abroad. In 2016 ANSA McAL bought the Florida Beer Company of Cape Canaveral, founded in 1996; the Florida Beer brand was dropped in June 2021, and the plant brews the Carib brands and the IPA Hurricane Reef. In July 2023 ANSA McAL agreed to take a stake in the Bahamian Brewery and Beverage Company of Freeport, which launched STAG in the Bahamas on 31 August 2024. A joint venture with the Indian distiller Globus Spirits began brewing Carib in India, where Carib Premium Strong Beer (8%) went on sale in Uttar Pradesh in May 2025.

Today the Champs Fleurs brewery makes more than 1.2 million hectolitres a year of beer, cider, malt, stout and soft drinks. On 21 May 2024 it commissioned Line 7, a bottling line for returnable glass bottles that runs at 54,000 bottles an hour, an investment of over TT$200 million. Craft brewing is new and small: Tommy's Brewing Company, founded by John Tannous, opened a brewpub at MovieTowne in Port of Spain in 2018, billed as Trinidad's first microbrewery, and now has three sites. BeerAdvocate also lists Samba Brewing Co. and Winery in San Juan, with three beers and no recent ratings. Caribbean Bottlers at Macoya, which has bottled Coca-Cola since 1939, fills soft drinks rather than beer.