Slightly glum to see the further decline of another great northern brand, as it was announced last week that Newcastle Brown Ale would no longer be brewed on Tyneside. Last year Scottish and Newcastle were bought out jointly by the big two Scandinavian breweries Heineken (Holland) and Carlsberg (Denmark). It seems that your “Bottle of Dog” will now be brewed exclusively in Tadcaster at the Heineken owned, John Smith’s Brewery. It seems like our Scandinavian cousins certainly prefer North Yorkshire, for taking over the brewing world, one beer at a time, with the Carlsberg owned Tetley’s Brewery just down the road in Leeds. Personally I think the warning signs were there in 2007. Newcy Brown used to have “Protected Geographical Indication Status” the same as Cornish pasties or Cumberland sausage, in that, it had to be made in that area. So you’ve got to be slightly suspicious of S+N applying to drop its own PGI status so it could move production to the Fed Brewery in Gateshead. I mean you can’t imagine yer Jersey Royal potato growers, going down the same route, so that they could destabilise the brand and move production onto the French mainland now would you?

By Dave on October 19, 2009