Food costs from £4.95 for a Cajun chicken sandwich to £12.95 for fillet steak Good beers as well as wines.. After a week you have surely dumped any hopeless resolutions to stop drinking. Mine, more sensibly, was to embrace renewal: a new year and some born-again beers. My fancy was especially tickled when I learned that Newcastle's famous Brown (it no longer calls itself an ale) faces a born-again challenger. The rival city of Sunderland recently lost its local brewery, but its most distinctive product, Double Maxim brown ale, was too good to lose. It has been resurrected, looking younger than ever in a smart new bottle.

After a week you have surely dumped any hopeless resolutions to stop drinking. Mine, more sensibly, was to embrace renewal: a new year and some born-again beers. My fancy was especially tickled when I learned that Newcastle's famous Brown (it no longer calls itself an ale) faces a born-again challenger. The rival city of Sunderland recently lost its local brewery, but its most distinctive product, Double Maxim brown ale, was too good to lose. It has been resurrected, looking younger than ever in a smart new bottle. While Newky Broon has always been popular among students, I wonder whether the reborn Double Maxim is aiming at laddish drinkers.

The first beer called Maxim, named after the machine-gun used in the Boer War, was launched in 1901 Double Maxim, a little stronger, came along in 1938. In the new labelling of 2001, Double is retained, but more emphasis is given to the word Maxim, which also happens to be the name of a lads' magazine.Double Maxim still calls itself a (Premium) Brown Ale, and bears the promise "Full of Northern Character" The northern element is more than history. The man who made the beer in Sunderland, Jim Murray, now oversees its production in Stockport by Robinson's brewery (already renowned for its stronger, darker, Old Tom). Working from my own taste memory, I find the reborn version a good character match but with a slightly more lively hop acidity in the finish. (Comparing old and new bottles is not ideal, because beer quickly loses freshness).Neither Newcastle nor Double Maxim is really "brown"; their colour is amber to tawny, at most.