The Beamish and Crawford brewery was founded in 1792 by William Beamish and William Crawford. They purchased an existing brewery from Edward Allen on a site in Cramer’s lane that had been used for brewing since at least 1650 and possibly as early as 1500. Beamish and Crawford’s “Cork Porter Brewery” prospered, and by 1805 it had become the largest brewery in Ireland and the third largest in the United Kingdom as a whole.