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| 1563–1822 |  Real Audiencia de Quito (Audiencia and Chancery of Quito): the Spanish crown's court and jurisdiction over the Quito territories, created by the royal decree of Philip II of 29 August 1563 and opened on 18 September 1564, in the Viceroyalty of Peru and later in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, until the Battle of Pichincha of 24 May 1822 |
| 24 May 1822 | the Battle of Pichincha of 24 May 1822 frees Quito, which joins Gran Colombia the next day; Ecuador becomes a separate state on 13 May 1830 as the State of the South of Colombia (Archontology dates the polity from 1830), takes the name State of Ecuador on 23 September 1830 and the name Republic of Ecuador on 13 August 1835 |
| 1822–1830 |  Gran Colombia (República de Colombia): Quito joined it on 25 May 1822 and Guayaquil on 13 July 1822, and Ecuador was its Departamento del Sur until the separation of 1830, under the yellow, blue and red tricolour of Gran Colombia |
| 1830–1835 |  State of Ecuador (Estado del Ecuador): proclaimed on 13 May 1830 as the State of the South of Colombia and named State of Ecuador by the constitution of Riobamba, promulgated on 23 September 1830; the tricolour stayed, with the arms of the State, and the provisional flag was decreed on 19 November 1830 |
| 1835–1845 | Republic of Ecuador (República del Ecuador): the name of the constitution of Ambato, promulgated on 13 August 1835; the tricolour was the first flag used officially after the separation from Colombia |
| 1845–1860 |  Republic of Ecuador, under the white, blue and white vertical flag of 1845 (three stars, and seven stars for the provinces by the decree of the Convention of Cuenca of 6 November 1845), until the yellow, blue and red tricolour was reinstated on 26 September 1860 |
| 1860– | Republic of Ecuador (República del Ecuador): the tricolour reinstated on 26 September 1860 and made definitive on 31 October 1900, when the arms were added to the flag for official use |
The traditional fermented drink of the Andes was chicha, made from maize. The Flemish Franciscan Jodoco Ricke (Joos de Rijcke), who came to Quito in 1535, is credited with brewing beer in the convent of San Francisco, and 1566 is the year usually given. It is often said that this was the first beer made in South America, but no source confirms it. In 2008 the Pontifical Catholic University researcher Javier Carvajal took splinters from the convent's old barrels, revived a yeast related to those of chicha and brews a dark 5.5% beer from it, Quito 1566.
The country's brewing industry begins in Guayaquil. In 1887 the Guayaquil Lager Beer Brewery Association was set up in the Las Peñas quarter by nine shareholders, among them Martín Reimberg and Enrique Stagg, as a beer and ice factory. The plant burned down in the great fire of 1896 and was rebuilt on the same site by Luis Maulme Bellier. Enrique Gallardo Triviño bought it in 1910; in 1913 it passed to Hope Norton as the Ecuador Breweries Company, and Norton and the brewer Francisco Bolek made Pilsener there that year. The company took the name Compañía de Cervezas Nacionales in 1921 and in 1940 handed imported barley seed to highland farmers. Pilsener was exported to the United States, Italy and Colombia from 1963, and Club, the premium beer, appeared in 1966.
In 1974 the company merged with Cervecería Andina of Quito and built the Cumbayá plant in Quito. It joined the Bavaria group of Colombia in the 1980s, moved its Guayaquil brewery from Las Peñas to Pascuales in 1985 and installed a 90,000-bottles-an-hour line in 1995. SABMiller bought it in 2005 as Cervecería Nacional, and AB InBev became the majority owner in October 2016. As a condition of that merger the competition authority ordered the sale of the AmBev Ecuador plant and several brands; the brewery had been founded as Cervecería Suramericana in Guayaquil in 1998, famous for Biela, and bought by AmBev in 2003. In August 2017 it went to the Ecuadorian investors of Cerec Holding, and in May 2019 Heineken took the majority; Heineken has been brewed in Guayaquil since July 2020. Club stayed with Cervecería Nacional, which in 2020 held about 95% of the market.
Craft brewing grew out of home brewing: the first small producers, Cherusker, Sabai, Bandido and Páramo among them, and the craft boom is dated to 2012. Latitud Cero of the Eljuri group in Cuenca, brewed at the Cervecería La Paz and founded in 2014-15, was the first craft brewery with competitive volumes, and by 2020 was shipping beer to Puerto Rico, the United States and Peru from a plant of 11,000 hectolitres. The craft brewers' association Asocerv, formed with five breweries, dates itself to 2014. About 120 craft brands were counted in 2019 and 253 in 2022, making some 6 million litres a year, 1.06% of the national market, with Quito taking 32% of it. In 2022 the Sinners Capuccino Stout of Quito won a bronze medal at the World Beer Awards, the first for an Ecuadorian beer, and the association holds the Copa Cervecera Mitad del Mundo in Quito every year.
Cervecería Nacional reported revenues of USD 398 million in 2024, 3% more than in 2023, for Pilsener, Club and the AB InBev imports Stella Artois, Corona, Beck's and Budweiser. In June 2026 it lowered the suggested prices of its beers by 25-40% while the special consumption tax on beer was set at zero for the football World Cup, until 19 July 2026.
