Until 1920 all the beer drunk in Taiwan came from Japan, and Ebisu and Kirin were already on sale when the first brewery was planned. That was the Takasago Malted Beer Company, formed in January 1919 by Abe Konosuke and investors from the Japanese wine trade with a capital of two million yen; "Takasago" was the old Japanese name of Taiwan. Its plant in Taipei, on the site of today's Jianguo Brewery, used equipment bought in Hawaii and was finished in April 1920, and the first beer, an ale in light and dark styles, went out in June 1920. The colonial government put liquor under a state monopoly in 1922 but left beer out after importers of Japanese beer lobbied against it; in July 1933 beer was added, with Takasago still brewing and the Monopoly Bureau buying and selling its output. Takasago was the island's only brewery under Japanese rule; in 1939 Dai Nippon, Kirin and Sakura took the majority of its shares.

In 1945 the Monopoly Bureau of the provincial government took over the plant, and from 1946 its beer was sold as Taiwan Beer. With the Japanese brewers gone, staff were sent to Germany to study brewing and German-style lager became the model; in the 1960s local ponlai rice went into the mash, which made the beer sweeter and softer. The Taipei plant, called the Jianguo Brewery from 1975, was joined by the Zhongxing brewery at Wuri near Taichung in 1966, the Chenggong brewery at Shanhua near Tainan in 1973 and later the Fuxing brewery at Zhunan; cans came in 1975. Imports were opened in 1987, when Taiwan Beer still held about 99 percent of the market.

The century-old monopoly ended when new tobacco and liquor laws took effect on 1 January 2002, and on 1 July 2002 the Monopoly Bureau became the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation (TTL), which the state still owns. It added Gold Medal (April 2003), the unpasteurised 18 Days Draft (2003), the Mine malts (2008) and a wheat beer (2013), and brewed on at Taipei, Wuri, Shanhua and Zhunan. By volume Taiwan Beer fell from nearly 85 percent of the market in 2009 to 70 percent in 2015 and 60 percent in 2019. In August 2025 it launched Gold Medal Plus, a cold-hopped 5 percent lager sold through the PX Mart chain.

Private brewing became possible in 2002. In the first two and a half years nearly ten small breweries were licensed, and about half were gone a few years later; by 2008 they held under 1 percent of the market. Among the first were North Taiwan Brewing (June 2003), the Jolly Brewery and Restaurant (September 2003) and the brewery restaurants of Le Blé d'Or, known as Sunmai (from 2004). Taihu Brewing and Zhang Men built chains of taprooms in Taipei, and in September 2015 Jim & Dad's Brewing opened at Yuanshan in Yilan County; in 2016 the Taipei Times called it arguably the only destination brewery in Taiwan, since breweries must stand in industrial zones.

The second large plant stands at Neipu in Pingtung County. Taiwan Tsing Beer Co., of the Sanyo Whisbih group, opened the Long Chuan tourist brewery there in 2005 on 8.6 hectares, first brewing Tsingtao beer for Taiwan; later it brewed Long Chuan beers and, as a contract brewer, Japanese brands and, since about 2020, Heineken's Tiger. Heineken took the majority and management of the plant's operator, Long Chuan Zuan Co., on 1 July 2022 and so became the first international brewer to own a brewery in Taiwan. Production for Heineken began in the first quarter of 2024, and on 26 April 2024 the company announced NT$13.5 billion of investment over five years and a net-zero aim for 2030.