Our famous ale deserves much better

Oct 14 2009 by Andrew Hebden, The Journal

IN today's economic climate, the likely loss of 63 jobs is rarely the stuff of front page headlines, so it says a lot about the wider significance of Scottish and Newcastle’s decision to close its Dunston brewery that it merited such widespread coverage.

You don’t have to be born and bred on Tyneside to know how intricately entwined Newcastle Brown Ale is with the community that spawned it. It is only a fortnight or so ago that NGI chief executive Andrew Dixon wrote in these pages about the classic iconic brands of the North East – and Brown Ale figured prominently in his analysis.

The North East has transformed its image over the past decade or so but, in a week in which we recalled the contribution made by one of the region’s great engineering talents, Robert Stephenson, it remains a part of the country shaped by – and rightly proud of – its past.

As Jim Merrington, the former S&N commercial director says, the unique thing about Brown Ale is how its name has become synonymous around the world with its home city. The last major brewery closure involved Tetley, which will no longer be made in Leeds, but even as a Yorkshireman, I’d struggle to argue the connection between that product and its birthplace is comparable with that of Brown Ale and Newcastle.

It is sadly ironic that, not so long after we launch a campaign to encourage the region’s businesses to Go Global in a bid to find a route out of recession, one of our most famous exports – and one which is particularly well received in the United States – will cease to be a product of the North East, with the recession cited as the reason.

In truth, the business case for shutting Dunston and consolidating operations into a larger site in Yorkshire appears to make a lot of sense – and in hindsight was perhaps inevitable – but it’s the treatment of this famous brand over recent years which has left a sour taste. Rightly or wrongly, it seems as though S&N has not afforded Newcastle Brown Ale the care it deserved.

Andrew Hebden is The Journal’s head of business