Nostalgia: Beamish Stout part of the fabric of Cork city

LAST month marked eight years since the turning of the sod on the events centre project, which is to be built on the site of the former Beamish & Crawford brewery.

With a decision on further State funding expected soon, this week’s Nostalgia takes a look back at the site’s fascinating past.

The brewery was founded in 1791 when two successful merchants, William Beamish from Cork, and William Crawford, who came from Bangor in County Down, entered into a partnership with two Cork brewers, Richard Barrett and Digby O’Brien.

They set up the Cork Porter Brewery on South Main St and the first porter was brewed there on January 17, 1792.

Brothers Donal and Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil, in their comprehensive history of the brewery, Beamish & Crawford: The History of an Irish Brewery, noted that it “quickly established itself as Ireland’s leading brewery”.

“It’s early success reflected Cork’s heyday as a leading port of the British Empire, and its subsequent fortunes also mirrored the history of the city and country,” the book states.

In the seven years from 1793 to 1800, the brewery’s output increased from 12,003 barrels a year to 63,230.

“The firm’s success was partially built on the changed system of taxing beer that, from 1791, favoured Irish producers over their English rivals, but also on the skill of the brewers at the Cork Porter Brewery — Digby O’Brien, Richard Barrett, and head brewer John Topp — who produced a porter that could rival and surpass the best that could be imported from London,” the Ó Drisceoil brothers note.

The brewery would remain the largest in the country until the 1830s when it was overtaken by Guinness.

Company goes public 

The Beamish & Crawford company went public in 1901 and was purchased by the Canadian brewing firm Carling-O’Keefe in 1962.

However, members of the original family owners remained involved in the business for many years afterwards, with Richard Beamish still involved when the company celebrated its second centenary in 1992.

Prior to that milestone, the company underwent a major expansion and modernisation plan, as one article in February 1986 from the Evening Echo, detailed.

“The Cork brewery, Beamish & Crawford, in keeping with a major £5m expansion and modernisation plan, have installed six 30,000-gallon fermenting tanks.

“The gigantic stainless steel vessels, 50 ft high and 13 ft in diameter, cost in excess of £750,000 and are geared to cater for an increasing demand of the brewery’s products on the lager market, said director and secretary, Mr Dick Walsh this morning,” it stated.

“The extensive South Main Street plant is largely a lager brewery with 75% of its production in Carling and Carlsberg.

“Mr Walsh revealed that the brewery now caters for a consumption level of one million pints per week.

“The new tanks will allow production of an extra 1.2 million pints per month,” the article continued.

The year prior, the brewery had expanded its stout market, exporting both draught and bottled Beamish stout to London for the first time.

Closure 

The brewery changed hands a number of times between the 1960s and its eventual closure in 2009 with the loss of 120 jobs when production was moved to the nearby Heineken operated facility.

“Today is in many ways a defining one, in that it is the end of an era, particularly for the many generations of Cork families that were part of Beamish & Crawford,” Declan Farmer of Heineken said at the time.

“I would like to recognise and compliment the significant part played by each and every employee in the life of Beamish & Crawford down through the years.”