Beer came to Morocco with the French protectorate (1912-1956). In 1919 the country had no brewery: it imported about 20,000 hectolitres a year in 1913, and the 10,000 hectolitres drunk in 1920 were all imported, for the most part by the roughly 80,000 Europeans and 80,000 Jews whom the founders of the first brewery counted as customers. A decree of 1967 bars Muslims from buying or being served alcohol, yet beer is sold in licensed bars, hotels and supermarkets, and the state taxes it.

The Société des Brasseries du Maroc was incorporated in Casablanca on 10 October 1919 with 3 million francs, 6 million from 1921, on the initiative of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, Paris-Maroc, the Compagnie générale du Maroc and the banker René Gaston-Dreyfus, who also sat on the board of the Brasseries et Glacières de l'Indochine (BGI). Its brewery and malthouse were built at Aïn Mazi on the Rabat road; malting began on 1 November 1921 and the first bottle of beer, under the name La Cigogne (the stork), was sold on 1 March 1922. Output was 20,000 hl at first and 30,000 hl by 1928, with depots in 13 towns, and the company was in practice the only brewer. In December 1947 it set up a subsidiary at Fès, the Brasseries du Nord-Marocain (Branoma), whose plant began brewing in February 1951. By 1952 the group had seven plants, among them a new one at Rabat, and brewed 280,000 hl; in 1953 it bought the Brasserie de Tanger.

After independence the state took a hand: in 1975, with the Moroccanisation of foreign-owned firms, the Société nationale d'investissement (SNI) took a stake in the company, and in 1980 it began brewing Heineken and Amstel under licence. In 1996 it launched Casablanca, a premium lager brewed at Tit Mellil, of which 37% was exported by 2011, mostly to the United States; the old house brands La Cigogne, Judor, Youki and Gil left the market in 1997. On 15 April 2003 SNI sold its 54.69% of SBM and 12.77% of Branoma to Castel, through BGI, for 1.7 billion dirhams (about 159 million euros). In June 2014 SBM absorbed Branoma and the Brasserie de Tanger, and in 2018, its centenary, it became the Société des Boissons du Maroc and fitted a solar plant of 2,208 panels at Tit Mellil.

Excise on beer went from 450 to 800 dirhams a hectolitre in January 2010 and to 900 in 2012. Sales fell from about 100 million litres in 2009 to 80 million in 2014, when informal production and smuggling were put at 25-30% of the market. SBM answered with the cheap Kania (November 2014) and, from 2017, beers made for the Spanish chain Mercadona. In 2019 it brewed at two plants: Tit Mellil near Casablanca, 1.3 million hl a year, and Fès, 235,000 hl.

The Heineken licence, renewed in 2013, ended in December 2023; Heineken had been 17% of SBM's sales in 2022, and in 2024 its loss cost 124,875 hl, with beer volume down 5.5% and net profit halved to 216 million dirhams. SBM also sold its water business in 2023, dropped Doble Malta and brought La Cigogne back as a soft drink in 2024. On 12 September 2024 it signed a partnership with Carlsberg, and Carlsberg has been brewed in Morocco since April 2025. Flag Spéciale Gold (+96%) and Casablanca (+35%) carried 2024; revenue was 3.08 billion dirhams in 2025 and 1.234 billion in the first half of 2026 (+4.2%, helped by the World Cup). SBM produced up to 95% of the beer sold in the country in 2014, BeerAdvocate lists only it and the Brasserie de Tanger, and no craft brewery was found.