  We observed the Galactic open cluster Berkeley 50 in order to determine its
stellar content, distance, and age. We obtained UBV photometry of 1145 stars in
a 12.3' $\times$ 12.3' field, and used Gaia proper motions and parallaxes to
identify 64 members, of which we obtained spectra of the 17 brightest members.
The majority of the observed population we classified as B dwarfs, with the
exception of a newly identified red supergiant star, which our spectroscopy
shows has a B-type companion. Our study establishes the distance as 3.8 kpc,
with an average color-excess $E(B-V)=0.9$. Comparison of the physical
properties of the cluster with the Geneva evolutionary tracks places the age of
the cluster as 50-60 Myr, with its most massive members being $\sim7M_\odot$.
