Malawians brewed long before there was a brewery. Among the Chewa, maize-and-millet beer was the centre of every celebration: the grain was cooked, a portion of fermented grain was added on the fourth day, and the beer was passed round in calabashes from a big clay pot, 'brotherhood is to visit each other, beer is to drink together', as the proverb goes (Comboni missionaries). The British protectorate that became Nyasaland was proclaimed in 1889, ratified in May 1891 as the British Central Africa Protectorate and renamed in 1907; the sources read for this page name no commercial brewery there before the 1960s.

Industrial beer came with independence. After the Danish foreign minister Per Hækkerup visited Malawi in 1966 and its president asked for help, Denmark lent 15 million kroner to the state-owned Malawi Development Corporation and Carlsberg, which put in money of its own and became the main shareholder; Brauwelt names Press Corporation, then owned personally by Kamuzu Banda, as the local partner. Carlsberg Malawi Brewery, the first Carlsberg brewery outside Denmark, brewed for the first time in Blantyre on 14 December 1968 and sold 9.1 million beers in its first year. In 2008, a Danish museum history says, Carlsberg had 97% of the market and more than 250 staff. It owned 49% of the company in 2002 and 59.48% when it sold; Southern Bottlers (Coca-Cola) and Malawi Distilleries (Malawi Gin) were sister companies. The Makata brewery has a capacity of 380,000 hl and was accused for years of polluting the Mudi river.

The other mass beer is opaque. Chibuku, a sorghum-based opaque beer, is brewed by Chibuku Products Limited, in 2016 a unit of SABMiller; in March 2016 the Bureau of Standards suspended production and distribution at its Lilongwe plant over hygiene. In June 2025 its managing director, Gerald Bowler, said it runs breweries and taverns in Blantyre, Mangochi, Lilongwe and Mzuzu and buys maize and sorghum from smallholders in Balaka and Mangochi; its beers are Chibuku Super and Chibuku Special.

On 10 August 2016 Carlsberg announced the sale of its only brewery in Africa to Groupe Castel of France: Castel's holding BIH bought the 59.48% held by Carlsberg Breweries A/S (COMESA inquiry, 2017), and the company became Castel Malawi in 2017. By March 2018 Castel said it had invested USD 22 million, including a new brewery. Then came hard years: on 17 June 2019 the revenue authority froze its accounts in an excise dispute and the managing director warned of closure; it lost K1.16 billion in 2018, K6.24 billion in 2019 and K9.74 billion in 2020, with excise on beer at 60% against 40% in Zambia and 25% in Tanzania and Mozambique. Press Corporation said in 2021 it would sell its remaining 20%, and gave Castel 91% of the clear-beer market in 2020. Excise was later cut to 40% on clear beer and to 10% on opaque beer, which the company said tripled its sales. In 2022 the soft-drinks business went to Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, and the new managing director, Thomas Reynaud, spoke of a brewery in Lilongwe (November 2022).

Castel has kept adding brands: Castel Beer in 2019, with a new label in June 2024 and, from 2023, a three-year Challenge Cup football sponsorship worth over K1 billion; Doppel Munich in April 2021; and on 29 June 2025 Sapitwa, a 5% lager named after Malawi's highest peak, at MK1,600 for 330 ml. On 8 December 2025 Castel Distribution Limited raised prices again: Carlsberg Green 330 ml from K2,500 to K3,200, Castel Beer from K2,000 to K2,600, Kuche Kuche from K2,200 to K2,800. Craft brewing is new and tiny: Bumpy Road Brewing in Lilongwe, run by the Australians Ashlee and Liam, began brewing in November 2024, opened to the public in February 2025, makes about 1,250 litres a month and packs in cans rather than glass. In 2026 BeerAdvocate still lists one brewery in the country, Carlsberg Malawi Brewery in Blantyre, with five beers, none of them active.