Staropramen Brewery's history begins in 1869 when a corporation was formed on September 6, 1869, The brewery building was completed and beer first brewed in 1871 and the brand name Staropramen, literally meaning “old spring”, was registered in 1911.

Extensive modernization took place from 1933 to 1937 lead by masterbrewer Josef Paspa. The fermentation rooms with cooling vessels and large wooden barrels were replaced with modern steel tanks. In 1933, thanks to its volume of 800,000 hl of produced beer, the brewery became the biggest brewery in Czechoslovakia.

With socialism after the Second World War Staropramen was nationalised. After socialism ended in 1989, the brewery, along with the Braník and Měšťan breweries, became in 1992 part of the Prague Breweries group (Pražské Pivovary), which by 1996 came under control of the Bass company. Bass brought Ostravar into the group in 1997, then in 2000 sold its brewing operations to Interbrew, later AB InBev. In April 2012, Staropramen was bought by Molson Coors