This moreish
brown ale was originally brewed by Vaux breweries of
Sunderland. It competed with the more widely known
Newcastle Brown Ale. The
beer takes it's name from a cannon used in the
Boer War by Ernest Vaux one of the Vaux family who founded the
brewery. The Vaux brewery unfortunately closed in 1999 but the Double Maxim Brand has been saved by two of the original directors of Vaux. They relaunched it recently as a
bottled beer brewed to the same recipe as before (but now at Robinson's brewery in Stockport).
For those of you unlucky enough not to have tried it, it pours with a loose, frothy head that rapidly collapses. Compared to a cask ale it is fizzier with a more carbonated taste. The aroma is sweet, and in the mouth the emphasis is on a deep, rich malt flavour which is undercut with a pleasant tang of hop bitterness. It leaves behind a sweet caramel aftertaste and the irresistible urge to take another swig.