Newcastle Brown Ale - Association With The North East

Association With The North East

Like many British breweries, Newcastle Brown is strongly associated with its local area, in this case being the North East. While the name provides a lot of this, the sponsorship of Newcastle United, the depiction of the River Tyne in the blue star and mentioning in programmes such as Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads have helped ensure its association. Its local provenance gave the brand an association with "hardy, working class traditions and values".

Under the European Union Protected Geographical Status laws introduced in 1992, the name Newcastle Brown Ale was granted protected brand status in February 2000. In late 2007 this was removed when brewing of the beer moved wholly away from its place of origin to Tadcaster in Yorkshire. The company was obliged to make a formal application to cancel it.

The closure of S&N's Dunston brewery in May 2010 left Camerons Brewery in Hartlepool as the only remaining significant volume brewery based in the North East of England. Although there are several micro-breweries producing bottled beer for retail that remain in the Tyne Valley, the largest of which are Wylam Brewery, Hadrian & Border Brewery, and Mordue Brewery. Hadrian & Border Brewery based within Newcastle City limits produces a bottled Tyneside Brown Ale.

The ale is mentioned in the popular blues rock song "Thirty Days in the Hole", by British group Humble Pie and has been seen drunk in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory.