Recently, I was reading through lots of stuff about Newcastle Brown Ale. I got into a bit of complicated history... On the Beeradvocate website it is listed as being brewed at Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh. I haven't seen that on any other website. Is that a mistake or is this an obscure part of Newcastle's checkered past?
On BeerAdvocate the beer brands are listed under the company that owns the brand, not the actual brewing location. Newcastle Brown Ale is now owned by Heineken UK, which bought the UK portion of Scottish & Newcastle, which in turn controlled the Caledonian Brewery Co, Ltd. BA merely lists Heineken UK's brands on that page, which is their UK corporate headquarters. Newcastle Brown Ale is now brewed at the Heineken UK-owned John Smith Brewery in Tadcaster, UK (I think the labels even mention Tadcaster) but some of their new limited edition brands are brewed at the Caladonian Brewery.
The beer was at one time given Protected Geographical status like Stilton and Champagne , to protect it from other companies selling a similarly named product.Then the owners decided to brew it elsewhere. From Wikipedia, but seems accurate; The geographical limitations can be quite strict. "Newcastle Brown Ale" was restricted to being brewed in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in England. However, having obtained this protection for their product, the brewery decided in 2004 that it would move across the river Tyne to Gateshead. As Gateshead is technically a separate town—albeit only the width of a river apart—it does not fall within the required geographical restriction. The brewery then applied to the European Union authorities to have the geographical restriction revoked. If the restriction had not been revoked, the brewery would have been forced either to move back to Newcastle, or stop calling its beer "Newcastle" brown ale.[7] Ultimately, the brewery's application to revoke the geographic restriction was approved It is now as Jesskidden states, brewed in Tadcaster.The John Smith's brewery there is not to be confused with Sam Smith's, also of Tadcaster.
Or they could have just renamed it "New Castle Brown Ale" - since that's what many US BA's seem to call it anyway...
I don't think that the Newcastle Founders Ale had been released yet when that official Heineken USA Press Release I linked to was published but it was they who noted the Caledonian Brewery as the location. (And I said merely "some..." of them). But, yeah, that's pretty funny that they release a brew in tribute to the founders of the brewery (now long closed) and they contract the brewing of the beer out to another company. Just as odd as Eldridge, Pope & Co. changing their name to their most famous brand, Thomas Hardy's, and then selling off the rights to that brand to a US company, which contracted with a different UK brewery to brew it.
