Introduction

This chapter examines the actors involved in attempting to create and fix meaningful and valuable geographical associations in the brand and branding of Newcastle Brown Ale (NBA) in particular spatial and temporal market settings. Emphasizing the importance of socio-spatial history, it begins by tracing the geo-historical origins of the brand. It explains the origination of NBA in the particular ‘local’ of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the north east region of England. NBA’s brand owner, managers, circulators, consumers and regulators have sought to construct and appropriate meaning and value from its traditions and values in its urban and regional commercial heartland and subsequent national distribution. This particular origination made it difficult for the brand owners and managers to recruit new generations of consumers in the north east and beyond in the context of broader market shifts and segmentation. Origination illuminates how the brand owner’s search for new markets for the brand articulated with a growing market segment in America. NBA’s origination was then changed to the national scale within the pluri-national state of the United Kingdom. The brand was (re)originated as ‘Imported from England’ in efforts to construct its premium meaning and value for its new college-educated, typically male and affluent younger consumers. The wider value of origination is demonstrated in analysing the particular ‘local’ origination of NBA to how strong material, symbolic and discursive kinds of geographical associations in brands to particular places can lose their commercial value and meaning over time. Origination illuminates how actors try to reconstruct brands in new spatial and temporal market contexts through subtly different geographical associations.

Producing the ‘local’ in Newcastle Brown Ale

Geographical associations of the particular ‘local’ of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England are evident in NBA’s specific origins in Colonel James H. Porter’s experiments to develop a distinctive, full flavoured bottled ale brand for Newcastle Breweries in 1927. Facing competition from Nottinghamshire’s Burton upon Trent ales ‘coming up the country in bottles’ (former Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008) and connecting production to marketing from the outset in its spatial circuit, the ‘production of difference’ (Dwyer and Jackson 2003: 271) sought to create a brand distinct from the commodified, high volume and low profit margin ales and beers available in north east England in the late 1920s (Bennison 2001). The new dark ale was designed to offer consistent quality, taste, higher alcohol by volume, an attractive aesthetic and presentation, and be capable of commanding a premium price. The bottled packaging aimed to ‘allow the beer to travel’ (former Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008) in a consistent form and quality to support wider geographical distribution and sales beyond Tyneside. With relatively rudimentary technology, initially inherent properties of the new brown ale and its brewing process established NBA’s intrinsic and material geographical associations to the Tyne Brewery site in Newcastle upon Tyne. These attachments imbued an origin myth of distinctive ‘waters of the Tyne’ (Brewery Manager, author’s interview, 2008) providing distinctive water combined with locally particular yeast strains and raw materials of barley, hops and malt brewed with locally idiosyncratic and variable brewing equipment and brewers’ skills. In this spatial and temporal market setting, Newcastle Breweries had managed to establish and cohere a fix of strong geographical associations to construct a meaningful and valuable ‘local’ origination for NBA.

Until 2008, the NBA brand was owned by UK-based Scottish and Newcastle (S&N) plc. S&N was growing through acquisition from a regional brewer and pub owner in Scotland and northern England into an aspirant international brewer in the context of a consolidating industry, dominated by Anheuser-Busch/InBev and SABMiller, prior to its £7.8 billion takeover and break-up by Carlsberg and Heineken (Table 4.1). Changing into a brand-oriented sales and marketing company to escape the high capital intensity and sunk costs of brewing, S&N’s core strategy in the UK market prioritized high volume ‘drive brands’ (e.g. John Smiths, Fosters and Kronenbourg) as aspirant market leaders, and higher price and margin ‘premiumization’ in lucrative ‘specialities’ niche brands: ‘Our brand strength is the key to both growing value in mature markets and rapidly expanding our positions in developing markets’ (S&N 2006: 6). Managing S&N’s ‘federation of brands’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007), non-core functions and ‘heritage’ brands still valuable in specific market territories were spun-off in joint ventures (e.g. Theakstons) or contracted out (e.g. brewing, packaging). Due to its distinctiveness, uniqueness and international profile for S&N, NBA remained as a ‘survivor’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2008).

Oligopolistic rivalry in the brewing business propelled advances in brewing technology, configuring standardized industrial practices in operating new generation ‘Brewfactories’ with tighter performance management systems. Each of S&N’s brands underwent microbiological refinement and codification to a tightly specified recipe and process to maintain their integral characteristics by delivering predetermined attributes of colour, flavour, smell, strength and taste. For NBA, this included: water matching from sources including Northumbria Water’s Whittle Dean reservoir; utilization of F40 generic yeast; particular varieties of barley, hops, malt and flavourings (e.g. caramel, hopscotch); and, pasteurization to extend shelf-life. Such practices loosened and, in time, disconnected any intrinsic geographical associations of NBA to the Tyne Brewery site, the territory of the city of Newcastle and the region of north east England until it reached the point at which there was ‘nothing really apart from the heritage to keep it on Tyneside’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007). This break freed the brand from any residual spatial ties and rendered its production mobile, allowing S&N to replicate NBA’s material attributes beyond the particular geographical and historical ‘local’ of its initial origination.

Tied into the capital markets in the City of London by institutional ownership as a publicly limited company (PLC) and in the context of financialization (Pike and Pollard 2010), the economic imperatives of scale, specialization and reducing its cost base in a concentrating industry eventually forced S&N to sever the material geographical associations of NBA production in the Tyne Brewery in Newcastle upon Tyne. Pressures from shareholders and analysts in the City for brewing capacity rationalization to reduce its costs and increase investment returns led S&N to close the Tyne Brewery in 2004. The explanation focused on its underused capacity, high costs, ageing plant, limited flexibility, site redevelopment opportunities and need for investment in existing ‘drive’ brands (S&N 2004). Estimates of £10 million annual cost savings were made with commitments to reinvest in NBA’s brand development. Others speculated that S&N stood to make c. £50 million from the sale of the city centre site to the then Regional Development Agency (RDA) ONE North East, Newcastle City Council and Newcastle University (Walker 2004a) – replicating the property development deal model first tried in S&N’s closure of the Fountainbridge Brewery in central Edinburgh in 2004. Despite S&N’s production strategy of concentrating investment on fewer, bigger sites in the United Kingdom at Manchester, Reading and Tadcaster (which brewed 5% of NBA’s total volume and packaged the brand) none of these breweries had available capacity to take on NBA’s volumes at the time (Figure 4.1).

In a locally fortuitous deal, S&N acquired the highly indebted Industrial and Provident Society Northern Clubs Federation Brewery – known as The Fed – across the Tyne in Dunston, Gateshead, for £35.6 million. Disconnecting its historical material geographical associations, S&N relocated NBA production to the newly established company Newcastle Federation Breweries (NFB) and refurbished brewery, shedding 170 jobs by integrating the Tyne and Fed workforces (Tighe 2004) (Figure 4.1). Demonstrating the cultural political economy of considering meaning and value in spatial circuits, the Tyne Brewery closure was not purely an economic decision. S&N’s management were torn by the particular geographical associations that originated the history and authenticity in the meaning and value of the NBA brand in the particular ‘local’ of Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England. Amidst talk of ‘Gateshead Brown Ale’ and ‘Dunston Broon’ (BBC Tyne 2004), S&N harboured genuine concerns about the potential damage to the authenticity of NBA’s brand meaning and value of shifting its material geographical associations: ‘In pure cost terms, it would be cheaper to produce beers from our brewery in Tadcaster, but we are conscious of the scale of our commitment to the North East and also the Tyneside provenance of Newcastle Brown Ale’, and were keen to stress it is ‘same water supply … same recipe … it will taste the same’ (Chairman and MD, Scottish Courage, quoted in Walker 2004b: 32).

Using identical specification, brewing parameters and skilled staff, NBA production was transferred to the Fed. The Fed Brewery received a £6 million modernization investment in similar brewing kit to that used at the Tyne Brewery and capacity expansion. In addition, a clandestine 6-month process of ‘flavour matching’ ‘Federation Newcastle Brown’ with ‘Tyne Newcastle Brown’ was undertaken to ensure the output matched the quality and other attributes to avoid arousing suspicions about taste differences.

In terms of the politics of production and geographically uneven development wrapped up in the brand, this local fix ‘saved the Fed’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007). Acceptance by trades unions representing members at both sites and anxious to safeguard at least some production and employment on Tyneside stymied public contestation of the Tyne Brewery closure. The lack of social agency contrasted the late 1980s campaign to ‘Keep the Broon in the Toon’ and ‘Don’t Give the Dog to the Dingo’ – involving public petitions, mass demonstrations and giant banners – mobilized by S&N (then a major Newcastle business employing over 500), Newcastle City Council and trade unions in response to Australian group Elders XL’s attempted hostile takeover (see Competition Commission 1989). Despite protests from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the local ‘Save the Blue Star’ campaign, the response was similarly muted when the Dunston Brewery was closed and put up for sale in 2009 by S&N’s new owners Heineken and NBA production was transferred to the main production site in Tadcaster, Yorkshire – prompting more headlines about ‘Tadcaster Brown Ale’. But rather than salvaging any distinctiveness from the Tyne Brewery’s architecture that could have provided differentiated meaning and value to any city brand, the site was cleared in haste by its new owners the City Council, RDA and University to make way for the promised glass and steel future of ‘Science City’.

In branded commodity stories where beginnings, endings, edges and their delimitations are in question (Cook et al. 2006), the geographical associations being used by actors to originate NBA in the particular ‘local’ of Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England provide a point of entry to understand and interpret the spatial circuits of its meaning and value. NBA’s material geographical associations have been severed and relocated but remain inescapable, meaningful and valuable. They shape the agency of the brand’s owner and producer at least temporarily in seeking to maintain the production attachment in the territory of the north east – if not the particular ‘local’ of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne – as part of the brand’s differentiated meaning and value in specific market times and spaces. Economic imperatives mediated through the socio-spatial relations of S&N’s ownership led to the severing of NBA’s material production attachment to the Tyne Brewery and the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, rendering its production spatially mobile and enabling the transfers first to Dunston and then Tadcaster. The manufacture of NBA’s cultural meaning and value complicated the unfolding process through the strong material, symbolic and discursive geographical associations constituting its particular ‘local’ origination, but they were ultimately breakable and shaped the nature of the local production fix. Situating the analytical focus upon the production of the ‘local’ in NBA by the actors to originate the brand illuminates the material spatial shifts and relations to spatially uneven development; generating geographical differentiation in patterns of output, investment and employment in the economic landscape.

Circulating the ‘local’ in Newcastle Brown Ale

Echoing the commercial meaning and value of geographical associations in advertising (see, for example, Burgess 1982), the particular ‘local’ origination of NBA has been central to its geographically differentiated circulation and mobility. Fixing and communicating difference in spatial and temporal market settings (Jackson 2002), the elements of NBA’s attributes, facets and cues were cohered by Newcastle Breweries from the outset in the late 1920s by the connection and enhancement of branding into a strong, distinctive and ‘unique … instantly recognizable’ brand (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007). Early marketing capitalized on NBA’s prize-winning recognition at the International Brewer’s Exhibition, entered by Newcastle Breweries to raise its profile and test its quality. The ‘local’ origination of NBA’s brand values and equities by Newcastle Breweries drew upon deep symbolic, discursive and visual forms of geographical associations in its socio-spatial origins. This attachment was celebrated at its Golden Jubilee in 1977 as ‘Newcastle Brown Ale – born and brewed in Newcastle’ (Dobson and Merrington 1977: 6). NBA’s particular socio-spatial history forged materially and symbolically strong geographical associations between the ‘Brown Ale’ and the city (Pearson 1999). The brand’s history planted deep roots for NBA in the Geordie public consciousness and culture. Longstanding geographical associations originated in this particular ‘local’ engendered a strong sense of social ownership and valuation of the brand. S&N recognized this sentiment in that the brand’s ‘loyal following will claim … for themselves … it’s our ale, it’s our Newcastle Brown … don’t take it away from Newcastle … it is a powerful force … and when we do anything with Newcastle Brown we’d be extremely folly to disregard that [sic] … because it is what’s made the beer’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007).

The geographical associations of the ‘local’ origination of the NBA brand and branding are represented materially, symbolically and discursively in its distinctive packaging. Emphasizing its presentational qualities, NBA has been bottled in clear, flint glass and sized at 550 ml to maintain its equivalence with the traditional pint measure. This differentiated packaging was central to its early advertising (Figure 4.2). On the label, the particular origination and longstanding provenance are connoted by the brewery address, the Newcastle city skyline silhouette of St. Nicholas’ Cathedral, the New Castle keep and the Tyne Bridge, and the Blue Star logo – the five points of which represent the founding breweries from Newcastle, North Shields (2), Gateshead and Sunderland consolidated to create Newcastle Breweries in 1890 (Hodgson 2005) (Figure 4.3). Since 1928, the Blue Star has acted as ‘a small but very important device adopted to enable the public to distinguish the ales made by Newcastle Breweries without troubling to read the label’ (Promotional leaflet cited in Hodgson 2005: 18). Authenticity and cultural authority are represented by the brand name in its original upper case red lettering, ‘Brewed since 1927’ tag, 1928 commemorative competition plaque, and hops and barley trademarked images. NBA’s uniqueness is encapsulated in ‘The One and Only’ slogan, popularized by Tyneside newspaper The Newcastle Journal in 1928 (Newcastle Brown Ale 2007), embossed on the glass bottle (domestic) or on a separate label (export). The secondary label on the bottle’s reverse provided discursive space to narrate the 80 years of the brand’s particular socio-spatial history. NBA’s nickname ‘the dog’, for example, originated in the gendered vernacular ‘I’m gannin’ to see a gadgie aboot a dog’ used by Geordie men as an excuse to frequent the pub for a drink of NBA (NBA bottle label, 30 November 2006).

Such strong origination in the particular ‘local’ of the city and the region underpinned the brand’s commercial growth. The actors involved constructed NBA’s branding to create meaning and value from its ‘hardy, working class traditions and values’ (S&N 2007: 1) founded in its north eastern urban, old industrial and Geordie context:

it is a strong brand …because it has huge identity in terms of the North East … an icon for the North East … it has always risen above its peer group … and we always use the expression ‘it punches above its weight’ … if you look at its UK distribution and UK volumes … it is comparatively small … but the iconic status of the brand … is linked to the football club and the city, the shipbuilding … it is instantly recognisable … there are some very strong brand cues as well in marketing speak … clear flint bottle … the gold band around the label … the Blue Star and everything … they are all … for us very very valuable trademark devices that typify the brand.

(Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007)

The particular ‘local’ origination of NBA was written through the circulation strategies in its branding, emphasizing its particular socio-spatial history in Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England as well as actively associating and layering the brand in newsworthy ‘myths and legends’ to generate publicity (Former Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008). The Tyne Brewery in the Newcastle cityscape was signed the ‘Home of Newcastle Brown Ale’ (Figure 4.4). The ‘local’ origination of NBA’s reputation and folklore were embellished through commemorative bottle labels (e.g. Angel of the North), promotions materials (e.g. posters, banners, umbrellas, inflatables) and brand extension (e.g. recipes, Doddington’s ice cream, clothing, memorabilia). Indeed, despite its origination in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, NBA is considered regionally as a ‘north east icon’ (Trade Union Official, author’s interview, 2007). Sales above the national average in Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside transcend the sub-regional rivalries stoked by NBA’s historic geographical associations with the city of Newcastle and Newcastle United Football Club through S&N’s sponsorship and the NBA label on the club shirt during the 1990s.

From the 1960s, NBA was circulated beyond its north east heartland and became a national brand. It survived rationalization and streamlining within S&N’s acquisition-led growth strategy and found its distinctive position as a premium niche brand within S&N’s national distribution network. NBA’s UK sales volumes peaked in the early 1970s and again in 1990 fuelled by student union cult status and its ‘Journey into Space’ nickname (Figure 4.5). NBA’s differentiated position as a ‘local hero’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007) was supported by advertising campaigns. These promotions included ‘The One You’ve Got to Come Back For’ based on the pilgrimages of international ethnic stereotypes, including Eskimos and Native Americans, to the Blue Star gates of the Tyne Brewery in Newcastle as well as TV and film product placement (e.g. Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Stormy Monday) and celebrity association (e.g. Jimmy Nail, Spender).

The closure of the Tyne Brewery and relocation of NBA production to Dunston, Gateshead, in 2004 led to questions about whether the brand owner, managers and circulators could still make authentic claims about the brand’s origination in circulating NBA when its material geographical associations had changed so fundamentally. Despite stories about the ‘end of Brown Ale’ (Trade Union Official, author’s interview, 2007), the relocation to the Fed was interpreted by S&N as a successful transfer and had ‘no effect on saleability’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2008). Indeed, the ‘local’ origination of NBA remained unchanged. NBA’s new material geographical association with its principal site of production was referenced only on the bottle label as ‘Brewed by Newcastle Federation Breweries Ltd., Tyne and Wear, NE11 9JR’ rather than the former ‘Newcastle Breweries, Gallowgate, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE99 1RA’. The particular ‘local’ origination of NBA acted here as an institutional ‘carrier of history’ (David 1994) used to communicate the meaning of its socio-cultural accumulation of geographically associated brand cues and equities, and retaining its economic value in particular spatial and temporal market contexts where its specific material provenance was ignored or less important. In the context of post-industrialism, the shifting nature of Geordie identity (Nayak 2003) and the production relocation, NBA was considered to have remained ‘in the DNA of the city’ and still to be internationally recognizable as a ‘Newcastle brand’ by virtue of the origination of its particular nature and history (Local Government Official, author’s interview, 2008). Crucially, NBA possessed such characteristics and attributes whether or not it was still actually brewed and made in the city. In the curve of the Millennium Bridge that replaced the Tyne Bridge on NBA’s new bottle label and figured in its new logo (Figure 4.6), NFB in Dunston echoed one of the five founding elements of Newcastle Breweries from Gateshead. In addition, the new brewery’s logo fitted neatly the recent cross-Tyne and consumption-oriented rebranding of ‘NewcastleGateshead’ undertaken by cooperation between the local authorities of Gateshead and Newcastle (Pasquinelli 2014; Richardson 2012).

With a mature and declining ale market in the wake of the shift to lager (so-called ‘lagerization’), fragmentation and segmentation into multiple new drinks categories and occasions in the United Kingdom from the late 1980s (Figure 4.5), the logics of capital expansion forced S&N to search for new spatial and temporal market contexts for the NBA brand. The meaning and value of the particular origination in the ‘local’ of Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England made it difficult to recruit new generations of consumers in the region and beyond as the drinks market evolved. NBA had begun its international travels somewhat earlier, however. Enabled by its bottled packaging and distinctiveness, uniqueness and strong geographical associations, NBA circulated through north east traditions of people working away in response to a contracting labour market in the wake of prolonged deindustrialization. NBA was sought as a reminder of home and symbol of belonging: ‘Exiled Geordies throughout the world demanded their own brew for special occasions and … the basis for a worldwide export network had been established’ (Dobson and Merrington 1977: 6). S&N actively liaised with the armed forces too, providing NBA for naval vessels visiting Newcastle (nicknamed ‘Brown Ale Bay’) and shipping NBA to regional regiments posted overseas in return for press-worthy photos of ‘Newcastle Brown Ale in Hebburn as in Borneo’ (Former Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008).

Despite the ambassadorial commercial role of the Geordie diaspora and inventive advertising campaigns such as ‘The One and Only world famous British beer’ (including straplines ‘Hawaii. The Lads’ and ‘Tyne and every Wear else’) touting a national origination of ‘Britishness’, NBA’s international sales outside America translated into premium priced but relatively small volumes across 40 countries worldwide, including China, India and eastern Europe. The particular ‘local’ origination of NBA’s geographical associations was commercially meaningful and valuable only in relatively limited market times and spaces. NBA’s value as a branded commercial commodity and its future growth were restored and secured when S&N successfully made one of Daniel Miller’s (2002: 27) ‘entangled judgements’ following its experimental foray into the particular spatial and temporal context of the American market in the early 1980s. S&N both contributed to and caught the wave of premium dark ale niche market growth, new openings of upscale Anglo-Irish bars and interest in imported ‘genuine, authentic British … brands’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008). S&N’s circulation strategy sought to articulate NBA as a ‘grass roots level discovery brand’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008). Initially, specific entry territories and key trend setting and hip retail outlets were targeted in North and South Carolina and southern California, especially San Diego, rather than the longer established but highly competitive drinking centres such as Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco in the largest American state markets.

In this emergent spatial and temporal market setting in America, S&N sought carefully to construct NBA’s brand equity based on ‘positive product differentiation’, distinctive image (‘premium, imported, authentic, sense of humour’) and taste (‘great flavour & easy to drink’) (Froggatt 2004). Working a ‘subculture affiliation’ (Holt 2006b: 373) markedly different from its articulation and circulation in the United Kingdom, the branding of NBA by the brand managers has both constructed and reflected market segmentation of a new niche. NBA’s meaning and value has been reoriented to connote and resonate with the consumption cultures of a new, college-educated, typically male and affluent younger generation (aged 25–34) and its independently-styled music, film and travel scene. The producer and distributors’ branding efforts have sought to reposition NBA’s brand personality as a hip, ironic and ‘no-nonsense’ ale in a particularly American market context. Crucially, the actors have retained markers of geographical associations constituting its ‘local’ origination. For example, they have ‘kept key brand cues … provided back label stories … about the name and where it comes from … the Star … euphemisms and nicknames … promoting the folklore and authenticity of the brand … its viewed as a brand that’s got credentials’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008). Branding and circulation activities include advertising its uniqueness (e.g. ‘Smooth Like No Other’), humour (e.g. ‘If you want bitter don’t tip the bartender’), quirky character (e.g. ‘The yin and yang of ale’) alongside brand imagery of NBA swaddled in ‘Old Glory’, referencing NBA’s Blue Star as ‘The 51st Star’ (Froggatt 2004), music sponsorship (e.g. Green Day’s 2005 American tour), and large-scale and prominent ‘brandscape’ advertising in selected urban locations (Figure 4.7). The cultural identity formation and status signalling of particular socio-spatial groups has been targeted. Constructions of the consumers as discerning, informed and self-confident drinkers ‘fits with trends towards premiumization, trading-up, connoisseurship, badge drinking’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008) that S&N seeks directly to connect with to support America-wide distribution and sales.

Cult status has generated sales growth and new nicknames (e.g. ‘Give me a Newcastle’, ‘The Nuke’), supporting brand extension merchandise (e.g. snowboards, clothing and lifestyle accessories, Nike’s NBA custom trainers). Even in virtual space, the origination has been carefully handled in on-line interactions. The ‘newcastlebrown.com’ web site has been targeted at American and international consumers in other growth areas in Australia and China and is distinct in content from the UK ‘newcastlebrownale.co.uk’ website. Commercially, the reworking of the meaning and value of NBA by its owners, managers and circulators has generated substantial growth. NBA exports to the United States grew dramatically from 30 000 hectolitres (hl) to 441 000 hl between 1991 and 2003, accounting for over 60% of total worldwide volumes of 770 000 hl in 40 countries (Froggatt 2004) (Figure 4.5). By 2005, NBA was the top imported ale in America, against its main competitor Bass, and third ranked grocery ‘power brand’ (Just Drinks 2006). Against such premium imports, the competition is even mimicking and emphasizing its own ‘All American’ origination now, such as the Brooklyn Brewery’s ‘Brooklyn Brown Ale’. Connecting the cultural benefits of such branding with material economic outcomes, NBA’s sales growth in America is highly profitable. NBA six-packs commanded a $1.40 premium relative to its main competitor in the import market and it ‘would have struggled to get established without being margin enhancing’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008).

Echoing the ways in which ‘the performativity of the interface is such that the relation of a brand to an origin may be organised in many different ways’ (Lury 2004: 55), central to the owner’s efforts to construct and define the NBA brand and its branding in this new spatial and temporal market context has been a shift in its origination. S&N changed the origination of NBA with a specific label marking it as ‘Imported from England’ in the American market. The brand managers have deliberately associated NBA through material, symbolic and discursive forms of geographical association with a particular ‘national’ territory within the pluri-national context of the United Kingdom to emphasize its ‘imported’ and premium market position and address the preferences of its targeted American consumers demanding traditional ‘English’ ale. The particular ‘local’ origination associating NBA with the city of Newcastle and north east England central to the socio-spatial history of the brand and its branding has not been played up by the actors involved. This tactic has been used because ‘in the US NBA’s main competitors Bass, Guinness are really known as imports from the UK and [we] didn’t feel we could make a gain by making a big deal’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008). Moreover, S&N’s importers and marketers recognize that:

there is much less cogniscence amongst US consumers about where it might be brewed and much less expectation that it would all come from a place called Newcastle … it can send mixed messages … it’s obviously changed and is coming up in the world … but in other ways it can be interpreted as a hard drinking beer from a hard working town … it’s not necessarily a position we would want to take.

(US importer, author’s interview, 2008)

S&N’s efforts in originating NBA’s geographical associations as ‘Imported from England’ distanciated the brand from the Tyne Brewery closure and Dunston and Tadcaster relocations. This strategy worked as a means of cohering meaning and value especially given the lack of knowledge in this specific spatial and temporal market context: ‘the Americans couldn’t give a shit if it was brewed in Sunderland, Gateshead, wherever it is … they want English beer, they want Brown Ale … they want a dark beer and as long as it comes from England they’re happy’ (Trade Union Official, author’s interview, 2007).

As brand owner and producer, S&N and subsequently Heineken now face a dilemma in organizing NBA’s spatial circuit to enable and underpin the particular ‘Imported from England’ origination central to its meaning and value. Growth in NBA’s sales volumes has made brewing in America economic especially as brewing is a classic weight-gaining industry in Weberian terms in which scale economies and proximity to market are critical. But producing the brand in America may be commercially damaging for the authentic meaning and value of the ‘Imported from England’ origination and label:

it’s economic now … it should be produced and packaged in America … we’ve done trials … where we have actually brewed it here and sent it over to America to be packaged … but the marketing people are very sensitive to that … that’s the only reason that we haven’t gone ahead with it … if the American market found out that it was packaged in America it would affect that market … but there are some huge distribution savings to be made … because it’s a heritage brand … our sales people would get nervous about it … as long as you can charge a premium price for it … it is a very profitable brand for us.

(Brewery Manager, author’s interview, 2007)

The meaning and value of the ‘Imported’ category in this particular spatial and temporal market context even prompted S&N to look further afield to source NBA: ‘we wanted to retain the “Imported from England” label … this provides cachet for the brand … it must have the brand message … but we looked at whether that should just be ‘Imported’ to allow us to brew in Mexico or Canada’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008). Substance to the rumours of ‘Tijuana’ or ‘Toronto Brown Ale’ has yet to materialize.

Reflecting the mutability of branded commodities over time and space through branding (Smith and Bridge 2003), geographical associations and the origination in the bounded territory of Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England were constructed and cohered by the brand owner, managers and circulators in the NBA brand in material, symbolic, discursive and visual forms. The rich geographical associations of a particular urban and regional social history were used to originate NBA in the particular ‘local’ of Newcastle upon Tyne and initially shaped its circulation in new markets beyond the north east in the United Kingdom. Following the Tyne Brewery’s closure in 2004, NBA’s relocation to Dunston and then Tadcaster were not highlighted in its origination and circulation. The perceived origination of the brand cohering its meaning and value was undisturbed and even blurred by the new cross-territorial ‘NewcastleGateshead’ place brand. Building upon its longstanding internationalization and the economic imperative to secure new and growing markets, the brand owner’s importing business in America focused on entering a particular spatial and temporal market context but had to subtly to undertake the cultural reworking of its ‘mystical veil’ to utilize the bulk of NBA’s brand equities to connect to a particular and growing sales demographic. Geographical associations to an identifiable and authentic origin place resonated across time and space as the circulation of NBA’s value and meaning was instrumentally reoriented by its circulators from origination rooted in the ‘local’ of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and north east England in the United Kingdom to (sub-)national origination framed as ‘Imported from England’ in America. This changed origination demonstrated the tensions and accommodations between bounded, territorial spaces at different scales and their mobility and projection in unbounded, relational spaces. The success of NBA’s circulation strategy in its new-found cultural resonance and market value then raised issues for its brand owner about the location of production within its spatial circuit of value and meaning.

Consuming the ‘local’ in Newcastle Brown Ale

Interrelating its differentiated brand equities, technical characteristics and packaging, NBA’s particular ‘local’ origination is strongly geographically associated with distinctive consumption practices resonant of its socio-spatial history in north east England. Traditionally, the 550 ml bottle is decanted into a half-pint Schooner or Wellington glass to maximize its taste and sustain the head. This locally particular ‘style of drinking’ was critical in ‘perpetuating the myth’ of NBA’s unique aesthetic and sensory appeal:

the design of the bottle was vital because it had this high shoulder … this immediately recognizable shape … in the mechanics of pouring the beer it actually provided this glug, glug, glug … which produced the head, an effervescence in the thing, and the sparkle came out and … the nose came out, the smell … keep refreshing the glass … it is the only way to drink it … because every glug bursts the thing up again … brings out all its qualities … its visual appearance was enhanced enormously by going through this ritual.

(Former Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008)

Such regionally rooted consumption practices reinforced the meaning and value of NBA’s distinctive brand identity. Sales grew beyond its north east heartland to its early 1970s peak and decline, triggering wider distribution to south east England and the Midlands and its resurgence during the 1980s prior to the fall and stabilization in the 2000s (Figure 4.5).

In the UK, NBA has dominated a static and at times contracting market as a differentiated brand capable of sustaining a premium price in a commercial context of less loyal consumers with widening repertoires of brands and drinking occasions. In the on-trade bottled ale segment in bars, pubs and restaurants, NBA grew its market share to a peak of 42% in 2003, against the much more locally distributed Manns (9.3%) and Whitbread Pale Ale (7.2%) (S&N 2004). In a market niche in the United Kingdom in which heritage and provenance are increasingly valued by consumers, NBA has sustained its strong market position, despite limited marketing investment relative to S&N UK’s ‘drive brands’ and its production relocation to Newcastle Federation Breweries in Dunston, Gateshead, and then Tadcaster Yorkshire. Indeed, NBA is even seen by some consumption actors as ‘a NewcastleGateshead brand now’ (Place Marketing Chief Executive, author’s interview, 2007). It is situated within the ‘NewcastleGateshead’ place brand, presented internationally at trade fairs as a resonant marker of a particular local identity, used in destination marketing as an internationally identifiable shorthand for the place, and presented to visiting dignitaries with bespoke commemorative labels: ‘Newcastle Brown is a great selling story for people coming into the area and there is a bit of actually being brewed in Gateshead in some ways “de-Newcastle-izes” it … brings it more part of the north east rather than just being a small part of the north east’ (Local Government Official, author’s interview, 2008).

In a contracting UK market setting for ale from the 1990s, the geographical associations used by the brand managers and circulators in their attempts to originate NBA in a distinctive and unique ‘local’ to establish and articulate its brand identity faced constraints on their growth. As the spatial and temporal market context shifted, consumption mores created a cachet around the brand unhelpful to S&N’s attempts to attract replacement generations of younger, especially women, drinkers. Acutely for NBA, its particular socio-spatial and class histories were an ‘important part of the culture’ of ‘Brown Ale, flat caps, whippets, leek growers’ but were pitched into tension with the new place brand’s ‘iconography of the region … the Angel of the North … Sage Gateshead … life sciences … blending heritage and innovation’ (Place Marketing Chief Executive, author’s interview, 2007). The brand management’s attempts to mimic and adapt NBA’s circulation strategies from the American market – including a bottle label designed by Newcastle band Maxïmo Park and 355 ml bottle drinks promotions in Newcastle’s Digital night club – have ‘failed to take off’ (Former Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008). Particular and traditional regional consumption norms have endured and troubled attempts at change: ‘Halves of Brown Ale? Never heard of it … especially in this region’ (Trade Union Official, author’s interview, 2007). Indeed, effectively admitting the non-core position and relative neglect of its ‘heritage brands’ such as NBA just prior to its takeover by Heineken, S&N sold NBA’s sales and marketing rights in the United Kingdom to newly established spin-off company Jygsaw Brands. Their strategy is rediscovery of ‘the Geordieness of NBA’ (Sales and Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008) and reconnection of the brand with its core heartland, reawakening awareness through the ‘I * NE’ campaign, ‘Broon Tour’ city map and construction of ‘brandspaces’ in key outlets in the city with ‘point of sale in every bar in Newcastle that is shouting Newcastle Brown to the people that walk in … then you start to engage this “The city feels like a Newcastle Brown city again”’ (Sales and Marketing Director, author’s interview, 2008).

In its circulation and sales growth in America since the early 1990s, consuming the geographical associations constituting the ‘local’ origination of NBA is markedly different from the United Kingdom. Consumption practices have combined specific characteristics of the particular spatial and temporal market context in America. This has included the shift in demand from commodified lagers towards dark and imported beers and the taste for cold, carbonated and sweet, flavoursome drinks. These particular consumer characteristics have connected with NBA’s specific attributes, especially the changed origination of ‘Imported from England’, marked through its labelling and establishing its provenance. Drinking NBA in America is mostly from draught in pint glasses (75% of on-trade sales) or 355 ml bottles (25% of on-trade sales) and cold, either dispensed (3°C compared to 6°C in the United Kingdom) or from the bottle straight from the fridge. In competition with other imports Bass and Guinness and regional micro-/craft beers (e.g. Sam Adams, Boston; Fat Tire, Colorado), NBA provides for its target market segment a ‘story in relation to other darks … [an] unconventional choice for consumers because of the flavour profile of the beer … consumers enjoyed the personality of the brand’ (US importer, author’s interview, 2008). The meaning-making of NBA’s particular consumers creates and sustains the brand’s premium priced market value and high margin. Brand owner S&N has reaped substantial commercial benefit from this new and growing market segment and the changed origination of the brand. NBA is ‘probably the best example in our group of how one brand has been transformed from one part of the world to another’ (Head of Corporate Communications, S&N, quoted in Whitten 2007: 1).

The impact of the relocated material geographical association of production from Newcastle to Gateshead is interpreted as negligible in this distanciated spatial and temporal market setting in which NBA’s origination has been subtly shifted to ‘Imported from England’:

[the relocation] makes no difference … [the] move to Gateshead was only important locally. … Beyond 10 miles of the city does anybody notice or care? To all intents and purposes it is brewed in Newcastle … if you’re in a bar in Vietnam, in LA … it’s brewed in Newcastle … internationally it’s still Newcastle Brown Ale.

(Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007)

Indeed, the sales growth in America provided a marked increase in demand and raised capacity constraints for NBA production at Dunston leading to its closure and further relocation to Tadcaster, Yorkshire. Echoing Ray Hudson’s (2005) more open and porous notion of virtual ‘spaces of brands’, the growing consumption of NBA in America has extended its geographical reach in relational space through web-facilitated brand extension merchandizing and interactivity including competitions, downloads and promotions. Even in on-line relational space, NBA’s international web site content is spatially targeted, reflecting the continued differentiation of the brand’s geographical associations and origination in its circulation and consumption in particular market times and spaces.

The geographical associations constituting the particular originations of NBA have been used by the participant actors involved in attempts to construct and cohere the meaning and value underpinning its consumption in territorial and bounded spaces and places. The agency of not just brand owners and producers but the circulators of advertisers, importers, marketing consultants as well as consumers in the United Kingdom and internationally and the regulators of local authorities and place marketing institutions have each played their different roles within the brand’s spatial circuit. Blending material attributes and culturally constructed ritual, consuming the ‘local’ origination of NBA in north east England involved particular practices that added layers to the brand’s ‘mystical veil’ and reinforced its distinctive differentiation. NBA’s meaningful and strong consumption identity maintained its value in a shifting market context during the 1990s, despite the relocation in its material geographical associations of production in the context of the emergent and branded entity of ‘NewcastleGateshead’. But as the UK ale market declined such locally originated practices jarred with new generation consumers and compelled the brand owner’s search for new sales and marketing opportunities in America. NBA was successfully connected by S&N with the markedly different consumption culture and practices in a different market time and space in America in the 1990s. Framed by its circulatory representation, despite its shifting spatial attachments in Tyneside, the changed (sub-)national origination of ‘Imported from England’ prefigured its meaning and value amongst this specific clientele.

Regulating the ‘local’ in Newcastle Brown Ale

For all their cultural construction of meaning, in the brewing business NBA’s owner saw:

brands as vehicles for driving growth and value – no more and no less. What we’re looking at is very unemotional. We can talk about the beauties of brands and all that sort of stuff, but at the end of the day investors just want to know what they are going to get in terms of returns.

(Tony Froggatt, S&N, Chief Executive quoted in Bowers 2006: 30)

As the meaning and value of branded goods and services commodities are inescapably geographically associated and integral to their origination, S&N own and control these spatial connections and connotations wedded to the brand through rights to the brand name, 13 trademarks – ‘all of the devices that make that Brown Ale’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007) including the combination of bottle, label and Blue Star – and commercial confidentialities (e.g. the recipe, production specification). Sometimes neglected in accounts of brands and branding (except, for example, Da Silva Lopes and Duguid 2010; Lury 2004; Lury and Moor 2010), ownership and valuation of these assets is critical in spatial circuits as regulatory ‘tools of intellectual property’ that ‘are at once discursive and material: they function as a kind of holding operation on the flux of social life in order to identify commodity authors and name the recipients of surplus value at given geographical scales’ (Castree 2001: 1523).

In addition to the regulation of the NBA brand as a financial asset owned by S&N plc, the geographical associations central to the origination of NBA in the United Kingdom and European Union (EU) markets were formalized through the EU’s Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) scheme. As S&N pursued its internationalization strategy it sought further brand differentiation for NBA that would construct meaning and value in the particular spatial and temporal market context of the EU during the 2000s. S&N too sought to reinforce its control and protection against copyright infringement as it entered new and emergent markets in central and eastern Europe. S&N successfully applied for EU PGI status for NBA in 1996 based on its ‘unique recipe … developed to meet local tastes using yeast grown at the brewery and a unique salt/water mix’ (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 2006: 2):

the PGI … was seen as … one of the ways we could fairly swiftly throw some protection around the brand within … the European Community … it was also seen as a very good marketing tool … having the cachet of an identified geographic region puts you a cut above any of your competitor brands … [a] springboard into Europe in terms of marketing to say … unique to the north east of England … you can’t copy it … you can’t duplicate it … and the PGI documentation specifies a unique brown ale brewed according to a recipe owned by S&N at the Tyne Brewery, Newcastle … it tied it to a specific recipe, it tied it to a name, it tied it to a site.

(Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007)

In line with the PGI scheme’s aims of recognizing and protecting the provenance and value of especially agro-food commodities (Parrott et al. 2002), S&N’s application claimed that ‘Water is taken exclusively from the area’ and ‘the added yeast and salt/water blend are unique to the Tyne Brewery’ but ‘All the remaining ingredients are sourced from the UK’ (DEFRA 2006: 1). In addition, S&N stressed that the NBA brand’s ‘trade secrets’ (e.g. ingredients, processes, recipe) were trademarked, owned and controlled by the brand owner. This specific articulation raised several concerns that appeared to undermine NBA’s claim to PGI status under the ethos and terms of the scheme. First, the specification of particular local and extra-local geographical associations suggested some ambiguity in the degree to which NBA’s intrinsic and specific characteristics were attributable solely to its production location in a spatially delimited area on Tyneside. Indeed, NBA did not qualify for the EU’s Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) with its tighter regulation of provenance and origination. Second, PGIs were usually awarded to consortia or groups of producers located in specifically defined geographical areas that own the brand name (e.g. Parma ham) rather than a single company that owns the brand and produces it at a single site. Although established in 1927 and ‘inextricably linked to Newcastle … there weren’t necessarily specific characteristics of the product that were due to its geographical location’ (Central Government Official, author’s interview, 2006). Echoing interpretations of PGI as a local development tool for embedding and attaching assets in place (Morgan et al. 2006), rumours circulated that local management applied for the PGI as a means of protecting the Tyne Brewery’s future by tying it to the NBA brand only in Newcastle upon Tyne. S&N’s decision to close the Tyne Brewery and relocate production beyond the territory specified in the PGI undermined the basis of NBA’s PGI. This was especially the case because S&N were unwilling to redraw the specified geographical boundaries of the PGI territory across the Tyne to Dunston because it might be a ‘millstone if they might want flexibility to move production’ (Central Government Official, author’s interview, 2006). This stance proved prescient as Dunston was subsequently closed in 2010 and NBA production relocated to Tadcaster.

In 2004, S&N concluded the PGI could not technically prevent them closing the Tyne Brewery and prefigured their unprecedented step of applying to the EU to revoke NBA’s PGI:

production at the site in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne city … is no longer commercially viable … [and] presents operational difficulties … [S&N is] to close the Newcastle Brewery and to move to another site in the north east of England. Therefore the specification is not any longer respected in relation to the delimited geographical area of the PGI that is the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

(S&N application to revoke the PGI, European Commission 2006)

Mandatory notification in the Official Journal of the EU allowed public contestation. CAMRA argued that the PGI should be upheld. The rationale was that even if S&N no longer wished to produce NBA within the specified area other producers might and if the PGI was cancelled then the currently regulated geographical and historical association between NBA and Newcastle central to its particular locally originated meaning and value would be severed, opening up the potential for further production relocation. For CAMRA:

Consumers would be misled as [NBA] is intrinsically linked to the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the minds of consumers … [S&N] state that the added yeast and salt/water are unique to the Tyne Brewery … allowing producers to apply for the cancellation of a registration so that they can shift production in order to maximise profits undermines the credibility of the EU protected names scheme.

(CAMRA Letter to DEFRA, 7 June 2005)

Despite CAMRA’s challenge, the UK government ministry responsible at DEFRA recommended the revocation of NBA’s PGI to the EU because of its peculiar nature. The PGI scheme aims to offer protection for consortia of multiple producers of collectively owned products meeting precise specifications in a defined geographical area (Morgan et al. 2006). In contrast, NBA was a brand owned and trademarked by a single producer (S&N), a publicly limited company and registered for a PGI at a single production site (the Tyne Brewery). S&N’s ‘commercial logic’ argument was decisive because ‘the only person that can challenge against this would be a fellow producer of Newcastle Brown Ale … by definition there are none … any strong trademark protection effectively trumps the PGI thing’ (Corporate Affairs Director, author’s interview, 2007).

S&N’s approach proved controversial with local political representatives arguing that:

Recognizing that it never was a soundly based PGI within European rules … the PGI status should never have been granted … it was always really a brand … and its legal status as a brand was always under the control of the company … the European Commission … decided that fundamentally the PGI had no independent existence beyond the intellectual property of the brand and therefore could be surrendered.

(Member of Parliament, author’s interview, 2008)

Any potential new market entrants seeking to produce a branded commodity named anything like NBA would infringe the copyright enshrined in NBA’s trademark protection by S&N, not be able to gain access to S&N’s commercial confidentialities of recipe and production specification, and face substantial barriers to market entry relating to scale, distribution and marketing. In the wake of the PGI episode, subversion and homage to the NBA brand prompted local microbreweries in Tyneside and the wider north east region to produce Geordie Pride’s ‘Toon Ale’, Hadrian and Border’s ‘Byker Brown’ and Mordue’s ‘Wallsend Brown Ale’.

No longer encumbered by formally regulated geographical associations to the Tyne Brewery in Newcastle, coupled with NBA’s sales growth in America, S&N’s new found spatial flexibility and new owner Heineken’s international capacity stoked anxiety about the further mobility of the NBA brand’s production: ‘Technically, we could go anywhere in the world to produce Newcastle Brown. … If we can go to Dunston, we can go to the Moon’ (Company Spokesman, S&N, quoted in Whitfield 2006: 2). Concerns emerged locally that ‘they could sever their links with Newcastle even further. It could be Ohio Brown Ale just as easily’ (CAMRA Representative quoted in Whitfield 2006: 1). S&N’s incorporation into new owner Heineken’s strategy and structure of spinning-off ‘Heritage Brands’ and moving towards increased contract brewing even raised the prospect of selling-off the NBA brand:

what they would do is sell the Brown Ale brand … say they sold the Brown Ale brand to Joe Bloggs in America he would then decide what is the most economical way to get it manufactured … he wouldn’t necessarily say ‘I’ve bought the Brown Ale brand and that also gives me a brewery in Dunston’ … it would be ‘I’ve bought the Brown Ale brand now I need to gan [sic] and market it’ … wherever in the world … and I’ll buy it from where I can get it … I mean all consumer brands are like that now.

(Brewery Manager, author’s interview, 2007)

While the wholesale spin-off of NBA has yet to happen, the further mobility of its production has occurred following the closure of the Dunston brewery, Gateshead, and relocation of production to Tadcaster, Yorkshire. The geographical associations integral to the particular ‘local’ origination at the heart of NBA’s meaning and value have been (re)constructed, regulated, disrupted and contested by a range of interrelated actors in its spatial circuits: the brand owner and managers; the national government department; the European Commission Directorate; the local Member of Parliament; and, the campaigning organization. Tensions were evident between the bounded, territorial regulation of the PGI that tied the production of the NBA brand to a specified and regulated territory, establishing and representing its ‘local’ origination, and the unbounded, relational agency of the brand owner S&N enabled by its ownership and control of NBA’s trademarks and commercial secrets. CAMRA sought explicitly to unveil the regulated form of the ‘commodity fetish’ in the PGI and retain its tie to its specified production site of the Tyne Brewery and territory of Newcastle upon Tyne and the north east region. But S&N’s power of brand ownership reproduced geographically uneven development in decisively exercising its spatial flexibility in relocating its material geographical associations of production from its historical origin to Dunston and later Tadcaster.

Summary and conclusions

Uncovering the particular socio-spatial history and geographical associations of NBA have been integral to explaining how its particular ‘local’ origination proved powerful to the brand’s owners and managers in creating and cohering meaning and value in its spatial circuits. But in the specific spatial and temporal market setting of the United Kingdom in the 1990s, NBA’s owners had to grapple with its origination and strong attachments to a particular declining market segment and region in north east England. Elsewhere in America, NBA’s owners, importers and marketers subtly changed the origination of the brand from its ‘local’ geographical associations only to Newcastle upon Tyne in north east England to the (sub-)nationally framed ‘Imported from England’ to tap into a new and rapidly expanding market. The different ways in which the origination of the brand matters (or not) in different spatial and temporal market contexts shapes territorial development through influencing decisions about where economic activities take place and investment, supply contracts, jobs and so forth are located. In the United Kingdom, the brand owner’s ‘local’ origination of NBA has not prevented the severing of the brand’s material geographical associations of production with its historic origins following the closure of the Tyne and later Dunston Breweries, with the loss of over 300 jobs, and the relocation of NBA production to Tadcaster in Yorkshire. NBA’s changed origination as ‘Imported from England’ in the American market is posing very different questions about what impact it would have on its marketing if it were more economically brewed in America or produced and originated as ‘Imported’ from Canada or Mexico. NBA’s socio-spatial biography reveals how origination of branded commodities by the actors involved are not fixed or permanent constellations of geographical associations creating and fixing meaning and value; they are constantly disrupted and shaped by the agency of actors in coping with the rationales of accumulation, competition, differentiation and innovation in particular market times and spaces.