A takeover of the nearby Melbourne Brewery in 1960 secured Tetley's position as the largest brewer in Leeds.

[2] In 1961 Tetley merged with Ind Coope of Burton upon Trent and Ansells of Birmingham to form Allied Breweries, then the world's largest brewing conglomerate.

[4] It is the second highest selling ale brand in the world after John Smith's, with volumes of 700,000 hectolitres.

[1] Joshua Tetley leased the largest brewery in Leeds, located at Salem Place, Hunslet for £409 in 1822.

[7] Joshua died in 1859, leaving the business to Francis, who took on his brother in law, Charles Ryder, as a partner.

By 1860 Tetley was the largest brewery in the North of England and by 1864 the company had begun an ambitious building scheme.

[3][1] Although Tetley mostly brewed mild throughout the nineteenth century, pale ale, which was gaining in popularity, made up an increasing percentage of production.

[2] In 1961 Tetley merged with Ind Coope and Ansells to form Allied Breweries, then the world's largest brewing conglomerate.

[1] During the 1970s Tetley's was Britain's largest cask ale brewery, producing 1 million barrels a year.

An impartial customer survey in the 1980s concluded that Tetley had achieved an almost irrational level of customer support, particularly in West Yorkshire, in part because of traditional loyalty, partly because of highly effective television campaigns such as the Tetley Bittermen, and also because of a consistently high quality product.

In the same year, the brewery's dray horses, which had made beer deliveries to pubs around Leeds, were retired.

Despite protests that Tetley Cask brewed in Wolverhampton would taste different, the new beer has been greeted with a warm reception.

[18][19] The brewery was situated on the south banks of the River Aire near Crown Point, Hunslet and Clarence Dock.

The highest selling Tetley product is Smoothflow, a nitrogenated 3.6% ABV ale served at 8 °C (46 °F).

[27] It is brewed under contract for Tetley by Marston's Park Brewery in Wolverhampton, using the Yorkshire square method, and a dual-strain yeast.

[34] Following a break for a number of years from television advertising, Tetley returned to the screens in October 2010 as a sponsor of evening programming on ITV4.

Tetley's remain a major sponsor at Leeds Rhinos and are the official beer of most Super League clubs.

Tetley sponsored rugby league's longest running competition, the Challenge Cup for the 2013–2014 seasons.

[40] Tetley's were the main sponsor of Rugby Union club Northampton Saints from 1998-2001, including during their first Heineken Cup win in 2000, and continued to play a large role in the club until the early 2020s, with Franklin's Gardens' main stand named after the brewery from its construction in 2001 until 2023.

The company was criticised[citation needed] for choosing to announce the closure the day after Barack Obama was elected US president to ensure the news would not get any significant coverage in the British national press, leaving only Look North the Yorkshire Evening Post, Calendar and BBC Radio Leeds to cover it locally.

[42] The gallery maintains many original features of the offices, including the wooden panelling that runs throughout the spaces, the directors' boardroom, the staircase and passenger lift, and a war memorial which commemorates the Tetley employees that served in the First World War.

The Tetley gallery holds a collection of hundreds of items relating to the history of the brewery, including artworks and artefacts, such as paintings, silverware and furniture, tools, and commemorative beers.

A selection of original pub signs and bottles from the collection is displayed in a case on the ground floor, next to the bar and restaurant.

[47] The Joshua Tetley & Son Ltd collection also includes records of the 7th West Riding of Yorkshire Rifles Volunteers formed in 1860.

The Tetley Brewery played an important role in the creation of the Leeds Rifles as many of their employees were recruited.

At the outbreak of the First World War, 261 of Tetley's men joined the services, and of those, 25 were killed and 55 were wounded.