Black Sheep Brewery Theakston left in 1988, and after a hiatus of more than a year purchased the North Yorkshire Malt Roasting Company, originally part of the former Lightfoot's brewery site, from an animal feed company, in order to start a new brewery in Masham. Theakston wanted to use the Lightfoot name to bring back an old brewing tradition, but Scottish and Newcastle had already trademarked the name. The association of Masham with sheep led Theakston to come up with the name "Sheep Brewery" which rapidly became "Black Sheep" at his wife's suggestion. The first and original Black Sheep Best Bitter was sold
Black Welsh Mountain sheep legs; the males are horned, but females are normally polled.These sheep are known for lambing easily, as well as good milk and very high fertility. A small number of wild Mouflon sheep were introduced from Sardinia in 1906 and from Corsica in 1908 to Lambay Island (off the coast of Dublin) where they produced offspring. These were crossed with Welsh Black Mountain sheep and the inheritance of their wool-colour studied (Fraser Roberts, A. J. 1931 Colour inheritance in sheep; vi The genetic constitution of the Wild Mouflon, J. Genetics XXV (1)). The band State Radio released the song "Black Welsh