The predecessor of the company, , was established in 1889. In 1893, it was reorganized as . In 1906, Ōsaka Breweries merged with Nippon Breweries and Sapporo Breweries to form . During
World War I,
German prisoners worked in the brewery. After
World War II, the company was divided under the Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power Law by the
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. was separated from Nippon Breweries, which is now
Sapporo Breweries. In 1989, it was renamed to
katakana . In 2011, Asahi Breweries changed its name to Asahi Group Holdings, a holding company, and established Asahi Breweries Ltd as a subsidiary. In 1990, Asahi acquired a 19.9% stake in
Australian brewery giant
Elders IXL, which later became the
Foster's Group and was subsequently sold to
SABMiller. In 2009, Asahi acquired the Australian beverages unit
Schweppes Australia, now known as Asahi Beverages. In early 2009, Asahi acquired 19.9% of
Tsingtao Brewery from
Anheuser-Busch InBev for $667 million. The sale made Asahi Breweries, Ltd. the second largest shareholder in Tsingtao behind only the Tsingtao Brewery Group. In July 2011, Asahi acquired
New Zealand juice maker
Charlie's and the water and juice divisions of Australian beverage company
P&N Beverages. In August 2011, Asahi acquired New Zealand's Independent Liquor, maker of
Vodka Cruiser and other alcoholic beverages, for billion. In May 2013, its New Zealand operations expanded with the purchase of retail chain Mill Liquorsave. Also, Asahi acquired the Australian brands and assets of Cricketers Arms and
Mountain Goat Brewery in 2013 and 2015, respectively. The first of these transactions happened as a result of
Anheuser-Busch InBev (InBev) agreeing in April 2016 to sell its Dutch business
Grolsch Brewery, Italian business
Peroni Brewery and the UK's craft
Meantime Brewery and SABMiller Brands UK to Asahi; this €2.3 billion deal closed on 12 October 2016. After Inbev's acquisition of
SABMiller in October 2016, InBev agreed to sell the former SABMiller Ltd.'s Eastern European businesses and relevant assets in
Poland, the
Czech Republic,
Slovakia,
Hungary and
Romania to Asahi for US $7.3 billion. The deal closed on 21 December 2016 and included beer brands such as
Pilsner Urquell,
Velkopopovický Kozel,
Topvar,
Tyskie,
Lech,
Dreher and
Ursus. In 2017, the company sold its 19.9% stake of Tsingtao Brewery for $937 million. In 2019, the company bought
Fuller's beer business from
Fuller, Smith & Turner plc for an enterprise value of £250 million. The assets sold comprised the entirety of Fuller's beer, cider and soft drinks brewing and production, wine wholesaling, as well as the distribution thereof and also includes the Griffin Brewery, Cornish Orchards, Dark Star Brewing and Nectar Imports. In May 2020, the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board approved the company's $16 billion bid for
Carlton & United Breweries, and the deal will see Asahi ending up with about 48.5 per cent share of the Australian beer market. In September 2025, a ransomware attack on The Asahi group, caused a system outage and forced the company to halt production at most of its 30 factories. On October 3 it was announced that they were days away from running out of their most popular beer, Asahi Super Dry. ==Brands==