Newcastle Brown Ale Unveils New Look and New Plan

Newcastle Brown Ale is unveiling a new look and a fresh, localized plan for growth in the U.S. under management of the Five Points Trading Company, HEINEKEN’s venture aimed at incubating a range of premium global beer brands in the U.S.

Newcastle Brown Ale’s new primary and secondary packaging highlights the vibrant gold, blue and orange colors of the brand identity resulting in improved visibility on the shelf, on display and in the cold box. In addition, Five Points is reducing the number of SKUs available to focus sales and marketing efforts against the brand’s core retail and on-premise formats.

To coincide with the debut of Newcastle Brown Ale’s new look, production of Newcastle Brown Ale has officially moved from the John Smith’s Brewery in the U.K. to the Zoeterwoude Brewery in Holland. When asked about the move, General Manager, Five Points Trading Company, Charles (Chas) Littlefield commented, “Moving production of Newcastle Brown Ale to Holland makes sense for our distributor partners and our consumers alike. The move allows us to improve service levels including shorter order lead times, faster transportation to the U.S. and fresher product for our consumers. Despite the move, Newcastle Brown Ale fans can rest assured that the original recipe has not changed guaranteeing them the best, freshest quality Newcastle Brown Ale they love, every time, whether purchasing at retail or at their favorite local bar or restaurants.”

Littlefield added, “Moving production to Holland will also now allow us to ship Newcastle Brown Ale from HEINEKEN demand points, enabling distributors to order by the pallet versus by container. This means Newcastle Brown Ale orders can be combined with other demand point portfolio products including Heineken, Amstel, Strongbow, Red Stripe, Tiger, Birra Moretti, Murphy’s Irish Stout and Affligem. The result; fresher product available on a more timely basis.”

Under Five Points management, Newcastle Brown Ale’s commercial priorities will shift to a hyper-local focus, concentrating efforts and resources against the greatest local market opportunities where current and high potential Newcastle Brown Ale fans live. Brand Director for Five Points, Amy Tay commented, “At Five Points, our agility, entrepreneurial spirit and hyper-local focus is engrained in our mindset and behavior making us bigger than we are in our key battleground markets. For Newcastle Brown Ale, that means going back to basics to drive consideration and trial through non-traditional and grassroots platforms. We’re excited to unveil our 2018 programming in the coming months.”

Newcastle Brown Ale, 4.7% ABV, is available in 6-, 12-, and 24- 12oz. bottle packs and on-premise, 20L BrewLock keg and 50L standard keg.