County Stat Attack Week 8 - Tyne & Wear

Newcastle Brown Ale

Most of us will have Rated / Reviewed this beer as there are few British Beers with such a well-known profile as this one. Newcastle Brewery / Tyne Brewery had been around quietly in one form or another since 1749. However; it wasn’t until 1927 that Lieutenant Colonel James (‘Jim’) Herbert Porter, a 1st World War veteran, along with chemist Archie Jones developed the beer. Initially they were attempting to recreate Bass Ale, so they believed they had failed. The 5 pointed Blue Star came a year afterwards, again inspired by the Bass branding of a red triangle, it signified the 5 breweries that had combined to make up Newcastle Brewery.

Newcastle Brown Ale quickly became popular amongst working class, heavy industry workers in the North East, as although it was relatively expensive for the time, it had an ABV of 6.25%, very strong for post war Britain where beers were generally from 3% to 4.2% under strict government guidance to enable the workforce to keep turning up.

In 1960 Newcastle Brewery merged with Scottish Brewers of Edinburgh, this enabled the beer to be distributed nationally, following the movement of Geordies leaving the area and resettling throughout the country with the decline of the shipyards on the Tyne. The beer also became popular in student union bars, again due to its high strength. I personally came across the beer while working in a working man’s club bar in the 1970’s, the exiled Geordies would only drink bottles of Newky Broon and tried to introduce everyone else to it. It was the biggest selling bottled beer that we had and we used to get dozens of crates a week.

Scottish & Newcastle announced the closure of the Newcastle Tynebank Brewery in 2004, so production moved to the Federation Brewery in Gateshead. Then in 2007 production was moved away from Tyne & Wear to the John Smith’s Brewery in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. Carlsberg combined with Heineken bought S&N a year later.

In 2017 production became split between Tadcaster and the Heineken plant at Zoeterwoude, Netherlands. Then in 2019 U.S production commenced at Lagunitas Brewery.

Over the years the main selling point of the 6.25% ABV, that made it popular initially, became reduced to a rather dull 4.7% in the UK, they have also removed the caramel flavouring that they employed. It may be that the beer of the Geordies is not their ‘National’ drink anymore.

On Ratebeer the beer has over 3,600 reviews and over 5,000 ratings making it the 2nd highest in number of ratings for the UK, behind Youngs Double Chocolate Stout. Unfortunately the cost saving exercises over the years has given it an overall rating of only 27, at an average score of 3.03, far below what the beer would have received in its heyday you would imagine. My rating / review of a curmudgeonly 2.1 noted the changes that had already happened by 2003 compared to the beer I had tried in the 1970’s.

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I feel ashamed to say my knowledge of Tyne & Wear (like most ‘southerners’) is restricted to Newcastle and Gateshead. I really hope I have the opportunity to explore the area surrounding in the future.

I’ve been quite a few times, but only really to music venues which were my place of work for many years. There was a sign backstage at the Sage, Gateshead (a great venue overlooking the Tyne bridge) which made me chuckle every time - informing the band “You are in Gateshead and the venue you are playing is The Sage, in Gateshead,” lest any unwitting frontman lets out a shriek of “Hello Newcastle!”

116 rates are for beers originating from here, Wylam hogging the top 20. I first tried the brewery when I was in town looking after a reclusive Japanese noise artist at a free jazz / noise festival around 2009-ish. Few beers were served, but one was a Wylam Brown Ale. I guess back then they were more focussed on traditional beer. It was at Birmingham Beer Bash a few years later that I saw they were starting to experiment with Saisons and the like, and the transformation since has been great to see. Their Imperial Macchiato is my top rated beer at 4.4.

Alpha Delta and Full Circle are getting high ratings from me, although AD tend to be quite pricey. Errant and Almasty I tend to like too.

Not rated many places, but back in the early days I wasn’t rating places.

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Newcastle Brown story: My village in Lincolnshire (Sutton-on-Sea) had a pretty good cricket team back in the day. County sides would turn up in a coach with their wives and families for a day at the seaside and have a friendly game with us.

In the early 1970’s Notts came and my mate caught and bowled a certain ‘Gary Sobers’ (later to be Sir Garfield Sobers of course). Another friend and I decided we would drink the beer tent dry in celebration starting with a crate of Newcastle Brown. Sat on the said wooden crate thinking ourselves clever we merrily got pissed as farts and didn’t even finish the crate! To be fair I was only 20 or so.

<*))))))><

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I’ve got 30 rates for Tyne & Wear. I was scheduled to be in Newcastle for beer (planned by my wife Steph) last May on our way back from a Scotland trip that COVID cancelled. It most likely wouldn’t have gotten me to the top 50, but once again I didn’t get to have some new rates and place rates. We will see what 2021 has as we really enjoy Scotland, if we drive I will definitely look at making some place stops on the way up and back if driving.

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I was surprised to find that I had 57 ratings for T & W, but then noticed that Wylam was from there. And Box Social and Almasty. All three have produced beers that have been far better than I expected. I remember reading somewhere that Newcastle was one of the cities in the UK where a household with a solid income could live really well compared to say in the South East (home workers take note). And as others have mentioned the locals have a rare charm and a trip to St James’s Park is always a treat. That said, I have tended to be in the city for work and headed off into County Durham for leisure. I may rethink that! Honorable mention also for Northern Academy and Anarchy beers.

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Just wanted to thank @imdownthepub for the Newkie Brown history. Bizarrely I didn’t try it until I’d been drinking for 25 years and rating for 7. Scored it a 3, which was better than I’d expected.

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A strong region of brewing these days, I think! Many of the breweries make it up to Edinburgh on cask and keg.

I’ve got a total of 228 ratings for the region, and it places me 11th. A total of 10 of these beers, I’ve scored 4 or more, including 2 at 4.2. These are,

By The River Weezy’s On The Rouse
Wylam English Quad (2018 Special Reserve)

When things are open for good again, and there’s time, I must take the 2 hour train trip to the Toon. There’s a proper circuit of brewery taps to be nailed!

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My 5th top-rated county with a current total of 428, which puts me in 3rd place in the top 50. Geographical proximity accounts for a lot of that. T&W beers feature regularly in Edinburgh pubs. I’ve done 3 trips to Newcastle just for pubs & taprooms, one time heading out to Sunderland (which was lovely) another hitting the Corbridge beer festival first with @cgarvieuk and @Stuu666 . I think we got 85 new beers & ciders that day.

If you go to Newcastle and don’t visit the Free Trade Inn, have you really been to Newcastle?

In the first lockdown I ordered from all the T&W breweries that did mixed cases, and I wish CentrAle would sort out their website and start shipping nationwide. I’ve half a dozen Wylam cans in the garage from Northumbrian Gifts that I’ll probably get to this weekend. I’m 120 off toppling Craig from the top spot, but slow and steady and all that…

Like Ash, I was a big fan of By The River’s Weezy’s on the Rouse (4.4), which was probably helped by drinking it in situ. Anarchy, Alpha Delta, Full Circle & Wylam are breweries I’m happy to try anything by, and Vaux are the new fancy cans in town.

Will probably hit Corbridge again in June 2022, which means Newcastle pubs afterwards and hopefully a quick look in at CentrAle.

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