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"Share a beer" is, as I've always used it, a shorthand expression for "shared time, conversation, and company with someone, while drinking beers".

It's just a simple expression that takes the place of a bunch of concurrent activities.

It's funny, because I've got a few pictures that sum up exactly what you said about this single expression. I don't have many, but I greatly value the pictures I've taken that retell the story of a certain event to me.

In this context it doesn't usually imply that they literally both drank from a single beer. Just that they each drank a beer in one another's company.

Read as: “shared a beer break”

Just like sharing a coffee doesn't literally mean drinking from a communal cup, but means taking a coffee break.

What difference does it make? Two people shared a beer, that's all.