The first brewery in Montenegro was Onogošt, the Montenegrin Brewery (Prva crnogorska pivara), named after the old name of Nikšić. Vuko Krivokapić, who had worked for some years in a Sarajevo brewery, built it on land given by his father Janko, after the family had asked Prince Nikola in 1894 for leave to open a beer factory. The Prince freed it from duty on its beer, materials and equipment for ten years from St George's Day 1896. The equipment was bought in Trieste in 1895 for 1,400 florins and a brewmaster trained in Vienna, Fabijan Šegavčić, was hired; the first beer came out in April 1896 (24 April, says Croatian Wikipedia). Drinkers found the beer bitter at first, but sales grew, and in May 1898 the Czech writer Josef Holeček sent two brewers from Prague, Adolf Janauš and Adolf Švehla, who soon improved the process.

By 1899 output had tripled, but imported beer was cheaper, and Nikšić beer was seen as a gentleman's drink. In 1908 seventeen Nikšić merchants formed an industrial joint-stock association and built a second brewery, Trebjesa, named after a hill in the town. The building, planned by the Pest engineer Jakov Pinto, was finished in 1910 and cost 230,000 crowns instead of 160,000; about 2,850 of the 3,000 shares were sold, and the machinery came by horse cart from Kotor over Cetinje. The first hectolitres reached the market in October 1911 and in 1914 Trebjesa was already sending beer to Albania. Onogošt's board voted on 5 December 1913 to move to Podgorica, but a fire in 1914 damaged it badly and it never brewed again.

The First World War left Trebjesa in ruins. The shareholders decided in 1927 to rebuild it with war damages and bank loans and ordered all the machinery from Germany, so that, in the words of the historian Nenad Perošević, it was built a second time. It restarted early in 1931 with a capacity of 10,000 hl and in 1932 sent beer to Shkodër, Tirana, Durrës and Lezhë; that year Nikšićko won a gold medal at the Paris World Exhibition. The slump of the 1930s kept output low and brewing stopped in 1941. After the war rebuilding began on 1 March 1946, the first beer was brewed on 30 May and the first hectolitres were sold on 13 July. With a capacity of 20,000 hl, output reached 12,135 hl in 1947 and a peak of 26,018 hl in 1950, then fell to 13,800 hl in 1953.

Interbrew bought a majority stake in 1997 for DM 25 million; in 2009 the CVC fund took AB InBev's central European holdings as StarBev, and Molson Coors bought StarBev in 2012. Trebjesa is listed on the Montenegro Stock Exchange (TRNK). It brews four lagers under the Nik name, Nikšićko pivo, Nik Gold, Nik Cool and the dark Nikšićko tamno, and bottles Beck's, Jelen and Staropramen; Wikipedia gives it over 90% of the Montenegrin market. The company counts its tradition from 1896, although Perošević treats Onogošt and Trebjesa as two firms. On 6 February 2026 it marked 130 years of brewing tradition.

Craft brewing began in the 2010s. Aleksandar Đurović began brewing in Podgorica in 2015 and sold Podgoričko beer commercially from Independence Day 2018. Akademija Piva, a brewpub and restaurant in the centre of Podgorica, opened in November 2017; it is often said to have been the first craft brewery in Montenegro, but no source confirms the order. Mammut began brewing in May 2018 in the basement of Hotel Onogošt in Nikšić, and Grof, a small brewery at Daljam near Podgorica, in 2019. The first Craft Fest Montenegro, reported in June 2024, brought together ten local producers, among them Paun, Barba Niko and Bold, with more than 50 beers.