Dominion Breweries, New Zealand's second largest brewery, was founded at the corner of Great South Road and Bairds Road, Otahuhu, by William Joseph Coutts in November, 1929. Waitemata Brewery, as it was first called, faced immediate opposition from prohibitionists as well as the market-dominant New Zealand Breweries Ltd., but the new brewery managed to gain a toehold in the Auckland market, selling Waitemata draught beer.

Undercapitalisation and limited access to outlets plagued the new company and as a result, the Coutts family was forced to seek outside funding. Auckland millionaire businessman, (Sir) Henry Kelliher, owner of Levers & Co., a wholesale wine and spirit firm, saw the synergies between the two firms and in 1930, a new amalgamated company, Dominion Breweries, was floated on the New Zealand Stock Exchange with Kelliher's financial backing. With new production plant and equipment, the company began production of a popular clear sparkling larger, already fashionable in Europe.

Challenging the almost monopoly status of competitor, New Zealand Breweries, Dominion Breweries increased production and sales throughout the 1930s and 1940s. By 1948, one in five pints of beer drunk in New Zealand came from the Waitemata Brewery.

In 1956, Morton Coutts (son of the founder), patented the continuous fermentation process, enabling beer to be produced with greater consistency and product control. The process revolutionised beer production worldwide and earned the company significant revenues in royalty payments.

From the start, and right through to the 1980s, Dominion Breweries undertook a significant programme of hotel acquisition, producing a vertical integrated brewing and distribution business. By 1980, the firm leased or managed 280 hotels nationwide.

In the late 1980s the structure of the beer market altered when Dominion Breweries main competitor, New Zealand Breweries, was acquired by Lion Corporation and Dominion Breweries itself, by the Brierley Investments controlled, Magnum Corporation (later called DB Group). Both companies began a programme of divesting hotel assets.

In 1993 Asia Pacific Breweries (jointly controlled by Heineken and Fraser and Neave of Singapore) bought a majority shareholding in DB Group, giving the company access to international management and marketing expertise, as well as the Heineken brand, which it began brewing in 1994.

Capital investment followed, and in 2004, Asia Pacific Breweries purchased the remaining outstanding shares in DB Breweries, taking the firm once again, into private ownership. In 2005, maintaining a focus on product innovation and beer production, the brewery entered its 76th year of production, still on the original site in Otahuhu.