Brazil
Brazil is one of the world’s three largest beer markets, and three groups brew most of it: Ambev, with Brahma, Skol and Antarctica, HEINEKEN Brasil and Grupo Petrópolis, maker of Itaipava. German immigrants brought brewing to the South, and Bohemia, first brewed in Petrópolis in 1853, is the oldest beer still made. The country has 1,954 registered breweries, from Dado Bier, the first craft brewery of 1995, to Big Jack, and its brewers put cassava, rapadura and Amazonian fruit in their beer. Santa Catarina gave the world its first Brazilian style, the Catharina Sour. Brazilian beer today tells the story.
Beer style from Brazil
Breweries in Brazil
Ambev
Ambev: Brazil's largest brewer, formed in 1999 from Brahma and Antarctica, maker of Brahma, Skol and Antarctica, part of AB InBev.
Cervejaria Baden Baden
2 stylesBaden Baden, Campos do Jordão: the mountain-resort brewery of 1999 whose factory tour is the town's top attraction, owned by Heineken.
Cervejaria Bohemia
1 styleBohemia, Petrópolis: Brazil's oldest beer still made, brewed since 1853, now an Ambev brand with a museum brewery in Petrópolis.
Amazon Beer
1 styleAmazon Beer, Belém: the brewery of 2000 that flavours its beer with açaí, cumaru, bacuri and other Amazonian fruits and herbs.
Bodebrown
2 stylesBodebrown, Curitiba: Samuel Cavalcanti's brewery of 2009, home of a brewing school, the Beer Train and Iron Maiden's Brazilian beer.
Cerveja Avós
2 stylesCerveja Avós, São Paulo: Junior Bottura's lager brewery of 2016, named for his grandmothers, maker of Brazil's first canned India pale lager.
Cerveja Blumenau
3 stylesCerveja Blumenau: a brewery of 2015 whose peach Catharina Sour was the first of the style in a bottle, a BJCP example.
Cervejaria Backer
Backer, Belo Horizonte: the first craft beer of Minas Gerais, whose contaminated beer killed ten people in 2019–20.
Cervejaria Bierland
2 stylesBierland, Blumenau: a craft brewery of 2003 in Brazil's beer valley, known for its Vienna lager and a beer recreating the city's first.
Cervejaria Big Jack
3 stylesBig Jack, Orleans: the Santa Catarina brewery of 2016 named the best in Brazil at the Concurso Brasileiro de Cervejas in 2025 and 2026.
Cervejaria Colorado
5 stylesColorado, Ribeirão Preto: the craft brewery of 1996 that put rapadura, cassava and Brazil nuts in its beer, owned by Ambev since 2015.
Cervejaria Dádiva
3 stylesDádiva, Várzea Paulista: Luiza Lugli Tolosa's brewery of 2014, named the best in Brazil by RateBeer in 2019 and 2020.
Cervejaria Eisenbahn
3 stylesEisenbahn, Blumenau: the Mendes family's craft brewery of 2002, named after the railway beside it, now part of HEINEKEN Brasil.
Cervejaria Hocus Pocus
4 stylesHocus Pocus, Rio de Janeiro: a brewery of 2014 grown from home brewing, with its own plant in Três Rios and bars in Rio and São Paulo.
Cervejaria Liffey
7 stylesLiffey, Palhoça: the Santa Catarina brewery of 2013 whose Coroa Real, with pineapple and mint, was the first Catharina Sour.
Cervejaria UNIKA
5 stylesUNIKA, Rancho Queimado: a Santa Catarina mountain brewery of 2016 whose tangerine Catharina Sour is a BJCP example.
Cervejaria Wäls
2 stylesWäls, Belo Horizonte: the Carneiro brothers' brewery of 1999, World Beer Cup gold for its Dubbel in 2014, owned by Ambev since 2015.
Dado Bier
Dado Bier, Porto Alegre: Eduardo Bier's brewery of 1995, called the first craft brewery in Brazil, brewed under licence in Uruguay since 2025.
Dama Bier
4 stylesDama Bier, Piracicaba: a brewery of 2010 known for Dama IPA and a Pilsen it says won best pilsner at the European Beer Star.
Grupo HEINEKEN Brasil
HEINEKEN Brasil: the country's second brewer, built from Kaiser and Schincariol, maker of Heineken, Amstel, Kaiser, Eisenbahn and Baden Baden.
Grupo Petrópolis
Grupo Petrópolis: Brazil's third brewer, maker of Itaipava, Petra and Crystal, under judicial recovery since March 2023.
Way Beer
Way Beer, Pinhais: a Curitiba-area brewery of 2009, named the best in Brazil by RateBeer in 2014, known for sours aged in Brazilian woods.