No brewery is recorded in Samoa before 1978 in the sources found, so the beer drunk in Apia came from abroad. In 1978 the local press measured the coming Samoan beer against Steinlager from New Zealand, which cost 75 to 85 sene a bottle, and the brewery bought up empty Steinlager and Heineken bottles to fill with its own.

Samoa Breweries Limited was formed in 1977 by the Samoan government together with the German company Brauhause and local shareholders. The first Vailima was brewed in August 1978 at the new plant at Vaitele near Apia, and the brewery was opened in October that year. When the beer was announced on 12 October 1978 the firm was still called Western Samoa Breweries Limited; the plant had cost 3.5 million tala, more than half of it government money, and the government meant to sell its shares to the public. The beer took its name from the village of Vailima, "water in the hand", after a folk tale. It came as a premium beer and a lager of about 4.2 per cent, in bottles and kegs, and the plant also bottled soft drinks. From 1982 to 1990 it brewed San Miguel under licence.

In July 1999 Carlton Brewery Fiji, a Foster's company, bought 68.3 per cent; the Samoan government kept 15 per cent, the government of Nauru held 10 and small shareholders the rest. Via SABMiller (2011) the Fiji and Samoa business passed in 2012 to Coca-Cola Amatil as Paradise Beverages (Fiji). The brewery made about 85,000 hectolitres a year, 12 per cent of it exported. Its beers were Vailima Lager (4.9 per cent), Special Export (6.7 per cent), the low-carbohydrate Vailima Pure and, tried in 2013-2014, Vailima Natural, in which breadfruit flour replaced part of the imported barley. In 2018, its fortieth year, with about 200 staff, it signed a deal to sell in the western United States. At the end of 2020 the Coca-Cola range it bottled was moved to imports from Fiji and New Zealand, and up to 30 jobs were affected.

A local rival, Samoa Beverage Company, later Taula Beverages Company Limited, began at Falelauniu in 2012 and belongs to Taimalie Charlie Westerlund and the Ah Liki Investment Group. After three years with New Zealand and Australian recipes it went back to a German one under the Reinheitsgebot; it put in a new brewhouse in 2016, German tanks in 2017 and 2020, and launched its first canned beer in September 2020. Taula Original (4.9 per cent) and Taula Strong (7 per cent) grew from 100,000 cases in 2013 to over half a million, and its partners claimed more than 70 per cent of the market. In January 2021 Taula and Hari Punja and Sons of Fiji announced a joint brewery in Suva. No craft brewery or brewpub is recorded in Samoa.

On 7 July 2022 Samoa Breweries said it would close the Vaitele plant and brew Vailima in Fiji, citing old equipment, measles and Covid-19. After public protest it agreed on 23 August 2022 with the Samoan couple Charlie Va'ai and Beatrice Ott to give them an exclusive licence to brew Vailima in Samoa; brewing at Vaitele stopped on 31 October 2022, and in the meantime the beer came from Fiji. Vailima Breweries Ltd, owned by Saleimoa Charlie Va'ai and Ott, opened its new factory, which cost 17 million tala, on 29 November 2024 with 20 staff; it makes lager and export beer for cans and draught, and Samoa Breweries sells and distributes it. In May 2024 the Alcohol Standard Guidelines set a 5 per cent limit for beer sold in Samoa, and in November 2024 Taula objected and kept brewing Taula Strong at 7 per cent. On 28 May 2026 Vailima and Rugby League Samoa launched limited-edition Vailima Lager Toa cans.