Moctezuma Brewing, the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, was founded in 1890 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. José Calderón and Don Isaac Garza led a group of founders that also included José A. Muguerza, Francisco G. Sada, and Joseph M. Schnaider. They initially invested 150,000 pesos in the creation of the brewery, which began by introducing the brand Carta Blanca to the domestic market.

The brewery found success and over the years obtained more factories, including additional brewing facilities in Tecate (1954), Toluca (1969), Guadalajara (1970), Orizaba (1985), and Navojoa (1991), which installed the most modern equipment on the market. All told, Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma’s six plants produce 30,900,000 hl annually and employ over 19,000 people.

The company has enjoyed recent success in large part because of the mainstream consumption of its major US exports, Tecate and Dos Equis, the latter becoming widely known for its “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign, which began in 2006 and went national in 2009.

In addition to their beer production, Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma has focused on creating projects with social and familial benefits for their workers and country. Some of these include the Sociedad Cuauhtémocy Famosa in 1918, the Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in 1943, and the Hall of Fame for Mexican Professional Baseball in 1973.

On January 11, 2010, Heineken International announced that it would be purchasing FEMSA, the organization of which Moctezuma is a subsidiary.