Ghanaians made their own fermented drinks long before any factory. In the south the everyday drink was palm wine, tapped from coconut and oil palms. In the north it was pito, a beer of millet or sorghum brewed by households in small batches, fermented under a crust of foam, served from a calabash and never sold in bottles or cans.

The first brewery was built in 1931 at Adabraka in Accra by Overseas Breweries Ltd, a company registered in Switzerland. The Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Shenton Thomas, opened it, and its Club Premium Lager had to compete with imported beers. Accra Brewery describes it as the first brewery in West Africa, but a French financial report of 1932 says the SOBOA brewery in Dakar was started in 1930. In the early 1960s the plant gained 20 fermenting vessels and a new bottling line. In 1975 Overseas Breweries kept 45 per cent, the state took 40 and the public 15, and the company became Accra Brewery Ltd. South African Breweries bought control in 1997 and added Castle Milk Stout; an expansion to double capacity opened its first phase in February 2015, and since October 2016 the brewery has belonged to AB InBev through its takeover of SABMiller. Stella Artois came in 2017 and Budweiser in 2019.

Guinness Ghana Ltd was incorporated on 29 August 1960 to sell imported Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. Work on a brewery at Kaase in Kumasi began in 1970 and production started on 12 November 1971. In 1975 the government took 40 per cent and the public 15; the company listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange on 23 August 1991 and became part of Diageo in 1997. Ghana Breweries Ltd, owned by Heineken, brewed Star Beer in Kumasi from 1960 and was bought by Guinness Ghana in 2004, when the company took the name Guinness Ghana Breweries. Its Accra works at Achimota stand on the former premises of the Achimota Brewery Company, which began as the Tata Brewery of the industrialist J. K. Siaw. Star moved to Achimota in 2015 and came back to Kaase on 25 January 2023. At the end of 2012 the company launched Ruut Extra, the first cassava-based beer in the country. Diageo announced the sale of its 80.4 per cent on 28 January 2025; Castel completed the purchase on 3 July 2025 for about 81 million dollars, while Diageo keeps the Guinness brand under a long-term licence.

Craft beer is small and young. Clement Djameh, trained at Weihenstephan, runs Inland Microbrewery at Kwabenya near Accra with pilsners and hefeweizens brewed from sorghum; Time Out found it brewing again in 2015 after a break. Specialty Beers Ghana opened its Tale brewery at Nsawam in 2022, 10,000 hectolitres a year, with at least 75 per cent rice in every beer, and Tale won medals at the 2023 African Beer Cup and the Brussels Beer Challenge. Heritage Brewing, Ghana's first modern brewpub, opened in Accra in 2023 with cassava and maize. Tax pushes brewers this way: in 2025 a beer with under 50 per cent Ghanaian ingredients paid 47.5 per cent excise and one with over 70 per cent paid 10.