Gweilo Beer was established by Ian and Emily Jebbitt and Joseph Gould in July 2015. The three founders are from Britain. Gweilo or gwailou is a common Cantonese slur term for Westerners. In the absence of modifiers, it refers to white people and literally translates to "ghost chap". Gweilo Beer became Hong Kong's largest craft-beer brewery in 2018 after opening a factory in Fo Tan. The venue used a canning device from Italy that cost US$1.2 million and had an hourly manufacturing capacity of 6,000 cans.