Kenyans were brewing long before a brewery was built. An FAO study of East African brewing describes the typical honey beer of Kenya, made from honey with cane sugar or cane juice and fermented with slices of the muratina, or sausage-tree, fruit. In Nairobi between 1920 and 1939 African women brewed this indigenous beer and sold it in the African locations. Bottled beer was imported for the settlers, shipped some 6,000 miles, and Africans were barred by law from buying it until 1947, when the Liquor Ordinance of 1934 was amended to allow them licensed liquor.

Kenya's first brewery was Kenya Breweries Limited, set up in 1922 by the brothers George and Charles Hurst with their friend H. A. Dowding on the Rui-Rwa-Aka river at Ruaraka, outside Nairobi. The company was incorporated that year and brewed its first beer on 14 December 1922 (15 December in other accounts); the first batch went to the Stanley Hotel. George Hurst was killed by an elephant, and Charles named the lager Tusker in his memory. From 1929 the brewery used malted barley instead of imported malt extract, in 1934 it became a public company, and in 1935-36 it took over Tanganyika Breweries and became East African Breweries (EABL). The first rival, Taylor and Company's brewery at Ruaraka, opened in 1937-38; Ind Coope and Allsopp (East Africa) bought control of it in 1951, brought Allsopps Pilsner and White Cap, and EABL merged with it in 1962. EABL opened a Mombasa brewery on 8 February 1952, bought City Brewery in Nairobi in 1969 and commissioned a brewery at Kisumu in 1982.

In October 1998 South African Breweries (SAB) entered the market with Castle Lager and Castle Milk Stout from a brewery at Thika that cost 45 million US dollars. Kenya Breweries, which then held about 60 per cent of the East African market, answered with new brands and canned Tusker. Diageo had taken majority control of EABL in 2000. In 2002 the two groups settled: SAB closed the Thika brewery and took 20 per cent of Kenya Breweries, while EABL closed its Kibo brewery in Moshi, Tanzania. In 2011 EABL bought SABMiller's stake back, and SABMiller returned in December of that year only as an importer, launching Miller Genuine Draft through Crown Beverages Limited alongside Castle Lager.

The first large brewery owned by neither of the multinationals was Keroche Breweries at Naivasha. Tabitha and Joseph Karanja started Keroche in 1997 on their family farm to make fortified wines and spirits, and launched Summit Lager in October 2008. A new plant with a capacity of 600,000 bottles a day opened in March 2015, and Summit Malt and, in 2020, the sorghum-based KB Lager followed. Keroche closed in 2021 and 2022 and said in January 2025 that it was rebuilding, with the founders' son Edward Muigai running operations. Craft brewing began in Nairobi with Sierra Brasserie, started by Alan Murungi after he came back from California in 2005, and Big Five Breweries' Simplis Pilsner won a category at the Global Craft Beer Awards in 2014. EABL itself opened a microbrewery at Ruaraka on 27 November 2023, starting with the Manyatta cider.

A new Kisumu brewery built for 15 billion shillings began making Senator, a sorghum beer, in 2018. On 17 December 2025 Diageo agreed to sell its 65 per cent of EABL to Japan's Asahi for estimated net proceeds of 2.3 billion US dollars; Tusker and the other local brands stay with EABL. Kenya's Competition Authority approved the sale, with conditions, in September 2026; completion was expected in the second half of 2026.