BEER CHEER AS OLD ALE RETURNS

DOUBLE Maxim is Back.

The famous brown ale, dumped when Vaux Breweries closed last year, has been resurrected and given an expensive makeover.

Sunderland’s favourite beer for almost a century, Double Maxim was relaunched today after being kept under wraps for the last nine months.

The beer is being distributed by the Wearside-based Double Maxim Beer Company, launched by former Vaux directors Doug Trotman and Mark Anderson.

The first lorries, carrying 151,000 bottles of Double Maxim, will visit pubs and supermarkets across Wearside and County Durham Today.

Double Maxim is being brewed and bottled at the family-owned Robinson’s Brewery in Stockport.

Former Vaux head brewer Jim Murray has produced Double Maxim to the same age-old recipe after scouring Britain for water supplies similar to those used by Vaux.

Doug Trotman said: “When the three of us tasted it for the first time there was a visible smile. It was very, very good.”

He added: “We have young families, we wanted to stay in the North East and saw a great opportunity for the future when we bought Double Maxim from Whitbread, although we were disappointed it couldn’t be brewed and bottled up here.

SAMSON MAY ALSO RETURN TO PUBS

“We are very optimistic and expect to get it on to the national stage.”

Double Maxim was first brewed in 1901, to celebrate to the return of Major Ernest Vaux’s Maxim Gun detachment from the Boer War. At its height, between 1994 and 1998, it sold 5.7million pints, pumping £40million into the brewery.

Mark Anderson added: “Like most small investments it takes and element of personal risk to push these things through, but we are confident.”

The new company plans to make the revamped Double Maxim the leading North-East brand and one of the top six in the country by 2005.

Boasting a new, redesigned clear bottle under the banner “new body, old soul”, the beer is targeted at both traditional and younger drinkers.

The streamlined label was designed by Leeds-based Elmwood Design and features a beer-drinking Victorian gent to emphasise the beer’s northern roots.

The Double Maxim Beer Company plans to add other beers to its portfolio, including a possible return for Samson, if the Double Maxim venture is successful.