Paul Theakston, an old maltings and a borrowed brewhouse.

Black Sheep Brewery stands in Masham, North Yorkshire, the same town as the older Theakston brewery. English Wikipedia, citing The Yorkshire Post, says Paul Theakston had run the family brewery, Theakston, from 1968, taking over from his father Frank. The brewery’s own account says he left the family business and set up on his own rather than see “five generations of brewing leave Masham”.

The dates differ slightly by source. English Wikipedia says Theakston established the company in 1991 and that it became a public limited company in 1992 through a Business Expansion Scheme share offer, many of whose shareholders were real-ale drinkers. The brewery itself dates its first brew, a Best Bitter, to 14 September 1992, and The Caterer gives 1992 as the founding year. English Wikipedia adds that the Best Bitter was first sold at the Bruce Arms in Masham.

The site was not new. English Wikipedia says the brewery bought the North Yorkshire Malt Roasting Company, whose premises had been part of the former Lightfoot’s brewery, and the company says it set up in Masham’s former maltings, in a brewhouse that is still in use. The plant was assembled from closed breweries: English Wikipedia, citing the beer writer Roger Protz, says some equipment came from Hartley’s in Cumbria, and that the slate Yorkshire squares used for fermentation, together with a yeast strain in use since at least the early 1920s, came from the closed Hardys & Hansons brewery in Nottingham. Unused parts of the maltings later became a visitor centre offering brewery tours, English Wikipedia says.

Two name stories, a dialect word and a square sheep.

There are two accounts of the name. The brewery says “Black Sheep” describes Paul himself, the black sheep who left the family firm. English Wikipedia, citing The Yorkshire Post, tells a longer story: Theakston wanted to revive the Lightfoot name, but it had already been trademarked by Scottish & Newcastle; Masham’s long association with sheep suggested “Sheep Brewery”, and his wife proposed “Black Sheep”.

The sheep then ran through the range. The best-known bottled strong ale is Riggwelter, a name the brewery says comes from Yorkshire Dales dialect for a sheep stuck on its back that needs help to get up. English Wikipedia lists cask beers including Best Bitter, Special Ale (sold in bottle as Black Sheep Ale) and Black Sheep Blonde, and notes some well-known one-offs: a bottled trilogy licensed from Monty Python, and Velo, brewed in 2014 when the Tour de France Grand Départ in Yorkshire passed the brewery gates. The same article says the square sheep icon and sunset background on the Yorkshire Square Ale label were designed by the Middlesbrough-born artist Mackenzie Thorpe.

The flock grew beyond Masham for a time. The Caterer reported that in 2018 Black Sheep bought York Brewery and four pubs out of administration, among them the Last Drop Inn in York and Mr Foley’s Tap House in Leeds.

The current look dates from March 2024, when the Morning Advertiser reported a rebrand that it set against the brewery’s 31-year history. The paper said the black sheep logo now features prominently on every product, alongside the brewery’s brewing credentials and its use of fresh Dales water, and that the design covers cask, keg and bottled beers as well as merchandise. It made its debut at the Northern Restaurant & Bar show on 12 March 2024. Jo Theakston, marketing director of the then owner, told the paper that “we brew to challenge convention, with fresh Dales water in Masham, Yorkshire.” No design agency was named in that report.

Design and documentation.

The seven brewers in this group are all English regional and family names: St Austell, Timothy Taylor, Marston’s, Wadworth, Hook Norton, Black Sheep and Harvey’s. Most of them are Victorian or older. John Marston set up in Burton upon Trent in 1834, English Wikipedia says; Hook Norton dates from 1849 in the Oxfordshire village of the same name; Walter Hicks founded what became St Austell Brewery in Cornwall in 1851; Timothy Taylor began brewing in Keighley in 1858 and moved to Knowle Spring in 1863, the company says; and Wadworth has brewed in Devizes since 1875. Harvey’s of Lewes dates itself to 1790. Black Sheep is the newcomer: English Wikipedia says Paul Theakston set it up in Masham in 1991, after his family’s brewery in the same town had been taken over.

Their ownership has gone in different directions. Several still describe themselves as family businesses: Timothy Taylor says the brewery remains in the Taylor family; Wadworth says it passed from Henry Wadworth to his founding partner John Smith Bartholomew and is now in the fifth generation of Bartholomew family ownership; Hook Norton’s managing director James Clarke is a fifth-generation descendant of the founder, John Harris, according to an interview with The Morning Advertiser that the brewery republishes; and Harvey’s says it has been in the custodianship of John Harvey’s descendants since 1790. St Austell says it was founded as a family-owned company, and on 1 July 2016 it bought Bath Ales, English Wikipedia says. Marston’s went the other way: in 2020 its brewing business joined Carlsberg’s UK arm in the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company, Carlsberg bought out Marston’s remaining stake in July 2024, and since January 2025 the breweries have been part of Carlsberg Britvic, according to English Wikipedia. Black Sheep entered administration in May 2023 and was bought by the London investment firm Breal Capital, The Caterer reported on 31 May 2023; in January 2026 its owner, Keystone Brewing Group, was sold in a pre-pack deal to the newly formed Great British Drinks Company, The Caterer reported on 22 January 2026.

A brewer’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a pump clip, a name and the town it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands or changed how and where it brews. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the brewery says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its beer is brewed and how its pump clips and labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Two sales out of administration in under three years.

Black Sheep’s ownership has changed twice since 2023. The Caterer reported on 31 May 2023 that the company had called in administrators on 2 May 2023, citing rising costs and the after-effects of the pandemic, and that the business had been bought by the London investment firm Breal Capital. The deal took in the brewery, its four pubs and its shop and visitor centre. CAMRA’s West Berkshire branch reported that a new company, Black Sheep Brewing Company, would trade as Black Sheep Brewery and keep brewing in Masham. By March 2024 the owner had renamed itself Keystone Brewing Group, the Morning Advertiser reported.

That group did not last. Place Yorkshire reported on 23 January 2026 that two partners of FRP Advisory had been appointed joint administrators of Keystone Brewing Group on 22 January 2026 and had immediately completed a pre-pack sale of the business and its assets to the Great British Drinks Company, a newly formed company backed by the entrepreneurs behind Paramount Retail Group, which also owns the Yorkshire brewer Saltaire. The sale also took in Purity, Brew By Numbers, Brick, North Brewing Company, Magic Rock and Fourpure. Drinks International reported the same day that the deal saved 145 jobs, and quoted co-founder Ravi Sharma: “This isn’t just a restoration deal, it’s about restoring pride to Yorkshire.” The Great British Drinks Company has owned Black Sheep since January 2026.

One practical note: “Black Sheep” is a common trading name in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, so the Masham link matters when searching for the brewery, whose own site is blacksheepbrewery.com.

For a design guide, Black Sheep shows how a single animal and a family joke can hold a brand together through two sales in under three years — and how a 2024 rebrand chose to make that sheep bigger rather than replace it. Compare Theakston, the family brewery across the town, and Timothy Taylor, another Yorkshire cask brewer. For this guide we use fleece black, Dales green and sunset ale with a heavy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Black Sheep Brewery’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.