Czechoslovakia was proclaimed on 28 October 1918 and inherited the best-known brewing tradition of Central Europe. The first Pilsner-type lager was brewed in Plzeň in 1842, the joint-stock brewery in Smíchov, Prague, later Staropramen, brewed its first beer in 1871, and Budweiser Budvar was incorporated in České Budějovice in 1895. Bohemia had 666 breweries in 1912 and 526 after the First World War. Slovakia, in the Hungarian half of the old empire, brewed far less: around 1900 it had almost 40 industrial breweries, mostly small, the strongest in Bratislava and Košice.

In 1927 the republic had 492 working breweries, 292 of them making under 10,000 hectolitres a year; the trade was consolidating, with 92 fewer than four years earlier. Output was about 10 million hectolitres, 72% of it draught beer and 27% bottom-fermented ležák, and about 2% was exported. A person drank 68 litres a year on average, 106 litres in Bohemia and much less in Moravia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia. Four breweries made over 200,000 hectolitres: the Plzeň burghers' brewery, the Smíchov brewery, the Ringhoffer brewery at Velké Popovice and the First Brno Joint-Stock Brewery, together 19% of the market. By the 1930s Smíchov was the largest brewery in the country.

After the Second World War the state took the breweries over in two steps. The Plzeň breweries came under national administration on 1 June 1945, and on 13 September 1946 Prazdroj and Gambrinus were nationalised and merged as Plzeňské pivovary. Decree 101/1945 of 24 October 1945 nationalised the breweries that had made more than 150,000 hectolitres in 1937, and Act 115/1948, passed on 28 April 1948 and published on 2 June, extended it to all breweries and maltings from 1 January 1948. Bohemia had 260 breweries in 1946. The plants were grouped into national enterprises: Plzeňské pivovary, which exported to the United States again from 1947 and to Japan from 1966 and became Západočeské pivovary on 1 June 1964, with Plzeňský Prazdroj kept as the enterprise for trademarks and foreign customers; Západoslovenské pivovary in Bratislava, which took over Stein in 1948; and Jihomoravské pivovary in Brno, formed on 1 July 1960. In Slovakia the twelve breweries nationalised after the war were merged into three national companies.

Drinking grew steadily: in the Czech lands from 65 litres per person in 1936 to 154 in 1970. Hardly any breweries were built in Bohemia and Moravia, only Most (since closed) and Radegast at Nošovice, brewing from 1970. Slovakia built new ones: Topoľčany (1964), Rimavská Sobota (1966), Veľký Šariš (1967), Hurbanovo (1969), Banská Bystrica (1971) and Trnava (1974). Hurbanovo, whose malthouse made its first malt in October 1967, brewed Zlatý Bažant, was the first brewery in Eastern Europe to can beer in 1971, and became a national enterprise of its own in 1984. In 1989 Prague still had three breweries: Smíchov, Holešovice and Braník.

After 1989 the enterprises became joint-stock companies. Stein took back its name in 1989; Plzeňské pivovary, a.s. was formed on 1 May 1992 and renamed Plzeňský Prazdroj in 1994; the Smíchov, Braník and Měšťan breweries became the Prague Breweries group in 1992; Hurbanovo became the joint-stock company Zlatý Bažant in 1992 and Heineken's in 1995. Czechoslovakia ended on 31 December 1992, and from 1 January 1993 the later story of its beer belongs to the pages of Czechia and Slovakia. The rows on this page are the state enterprises of the time: Hradec Králové, Pardubice, Jihomoravské pivovary and Západoslovenské pivovary.