Newcastle Brown Ale and ale in the Federation Brewery site in Dunston, Gateshead, which was to pass to them with their £7.2m purchase of the Federation Brewery. The purchase and consolidation at Dunston created the new brewing company, Newcastle Federation Breweries. The last production run of Brown Ale in Newcastle came off the Tyne Brewery line in May 2005. Pre-production trial brews were conducted at Dunston to ensure no change occurred in its taste after the move. The Tyne Brewery site was bought by a consortium of Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council, and the regional development agency One NorthEast, as part of the
Old ale of winter warmer, similarly strong in alcohol content and usually spiced. The United Kingdom is most commonly associated with the term, winter warmer, where the United States mostly refers to them as a Christmas or Holiday beer. Some brewers will make a strong old ale for bottling. Some of these can mature for several years after bottling, and may or may not be bottle-conditioned. The "October" keeping ales are thought to have formed the basis for India pale ales shipped by the British East India Company. Another historic version was so-called "majority ale", a strong ale brewed on or around