Newcastle Breweries Ltd Round Enamel

Newcastle Breweries Ltd enamel tray dating from the 1910s. Newcastle Breweries Ltd was registered in 1890 to acquire five North East brewing businesses. The firms were John Barras & Co. Ltd Tyne Brewery, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, William Henry Allison's High Brewery, of North Shields, James, John & William Henry Allison Monkwearmouth Brewery, of Sunderland, Swinburne & Co., of Gateshead, and Carr Brothers & Carr, of North Shields. The newly formed Company owned 215 licensed houses. Brewing was centralised at the Tyne Brewery which was considered to be one of the best equipped breweries in the North East. The Company's first Managing Director was Thomas Watson Lovibond, an experienced man within the brewing industry, who was Chairman of the Brewers Society in 1899 and 1900. After its incorporation the Company expanded quickly and five further breweries were purchased by 1919, which were W.H.Falconar & Co. Ltd Howden Brewery of Howden-on-Tyne in 1894, John Sanderson & Sons of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1898, Forsters' Bishop Middleham Brewery Ltd in 1910, Addison Potter & Son of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1918, and Matthew Wood & Son Ltd Market Place Brewery of South Shields in 1919, In 1913 the Company launched its Blue Star trademark, the five points representing each of the five breweries that combined to form Newcastle Breweries Ltd. The logo became famous when brewing of Newcastle Brown Ale began in 1927. Assistant brewer, Colonel Porter, developed Newcastle Brown Ale as a high quality beer to fill a state-of-the-art bottling plant which had been built in 1925. By 1928 production of 'Newky Brown' exceeded six million bottles a year and it was named best bottled ale at the Brewers Exhibition in London. Colonel Porter was promoted to Head Brewer as a result and became Chairman in 1955. After World War II the Company continued to grow and it acquired the Northern Corporation Ltd in 1955, and two Scottish breweries, the Duddingston Brewery of Edinburgh, owned by Steel, Coulson & Co. Ltd with 360 public houses, in 1954, and James Deuchar Ltd's Lochside Brewery of Montrose, in 1956. Local brewer John Rowell & Son Ltd of Gateshead was purchased in 1959. Newcastle Breweries Ltd merged with Scottish Brewers Ltd in 1960 to form Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Ltd. In 1995 S&N purchased Courage Ltd to become the UK's biggest brewer. In 2008 Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Ltd was jointly purchased by Carlsberg and Heineken. In 2009 the name was changed to Heineken UK Ltd. The Tyne Brewery closed in 2005 when brewing was transferred to the Northern Clubs Federation Brewery Ltd at Dunston. The tray featured weighs 0.8 kg and is the heaviest example in my collection.