We study the nuclear modification factors R_AA and R_CP of the high transverse momentum (5<p_t<60 GeV/c) distribution of muons in Pb–Pb collisions at LHC energies. We consider two pseudo-rapidity ranges covered by the LHC experiments: |η|<2.5 and 2.5<η<4. Muons from semi-leptonic decays of heavy quarks (c and b) and from leptonic decays of weak gauge bosons (W and Z) are the main contributions to the muon p_t distribution above a few GeV/c. We compute the heavy quark contributions using available pQCD-based programs. We include the nuclear shadowing modification of the parton distribution functions and the in-medium radiative energy loss for heavy quarks, using the mass-dependent BDMPS quenching weights. Muons from W and Z leptonic decays, that dominate the yield at high p_t, can be used as a medium-blind reference to observe the medium-induced suppression of beauty quarks.