I was browsing through the internet BBC news and came across an interesting news item. It appears that Newcastle Brown (the famous Tyneside Ale) is to be no longer brewed there. It was, until very recently brewed at the FED Brewery which is alongside the main A1 as you travel into Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne - not very far from the famous Metro Shopping Centre near Dunston.
Heinekin UK, which owns the Fed brewery in Gateshead, is switching its operations to the John Smiths in Tadcaster. The last batch of ale was made two weeks ago, and desptched from the Dunston site on Thursday.
John Merrington, the former commercial director is quoted as saying "There's more Newcastle Brown drunk in America than is drunk in Britain, and perhaps if Geordies had supported it a bit more in recent years then it would have still been around in Tyneside."
Newcastle Brown has been brewed on Tyneside since 1927.
It took me back some years, as I used to study at Bretton Hall (near Wakefield) which was a department of Leeds University. One of my fellow students was a lad called Jeff Dowson, who came from the Dunston area, and every time he returned from home he would always have a crate of Newcastle Brown with him. He did a superb marketing job for them, and by the end of three years most of the intake were drinkers of Newcastle Brown!
Maybe if Jeff had been doing his stuff today, the brewery would still be open at Gateshead!
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