Reviving a dead beer (Vaux Double Maxim)

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BrewUnited

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Location
Shelby, NC
Hey Guys,

Trying to revive a brew from my home town that's been dead for quite sometime. My Dad has talked a long time about this beer being close to Newcastle Brown Ale but, that it was much smoother and had more of a head on it. Since I have never actually tried the beer it makes it hard to recreate it. I found the following on here....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f67/aberdeen-brown-ale-newcastle-clone-ag-36912/

In which someone from Sunderland England discusses it being similar. Has anyone on this board actually tried the original or know of a place to find a good clone recipe?

Andy
 
I have not, but I like the idea of bringing back a beer from the dead.





cue EvilTOJ for a Zombie beer comment ;)
 
Looks like a great recipe to start out with! I especially like the 5% of dextrin in it and the pics look promising. Good luck Dr.Frankenstein:) (its frankensteen!)
 
youngfrankensteinSPLASH.jpg


I'm looking forward to it for sure. Hopefully someone on here has tasted it also so that I can get some feedback on it.
 
Maybe start with a bunch of american-ized brown ales and see if any of them are closer to the "dead" one then do their clone. Two that come to mind for me are Big Sky Brewing's "Moose Drool", and Goose Island's "Naughty Goose"...

I also am a huge fan of the brown ale sytle (1 of every 4 so far has been a variation on the theme trying to dial in my house brown recipe).
I really liked JZ's recipe, and surprisingly Brewers Best Brown Ale extract kit, where I subbed in a whitelabs British Ale II yeast, and added a late (10min) addition of EKG...
 
Looks like someone has revived it. Link
Double Maxim is brewed using Maris Otter & Crystal Malts and English Golding Aroma Hops. It delivers a mouth of full and rounded flavour that is well balanced and smooth and leaves a pleasant and lingering and slightly sweet aftertaste.

Roger Protz described it as "an undoubted classic. It is a fine example of a North East brown ale. It is a good balance of ripe grain and spicy hops, with a long bittersweet finish."
 
Awesome! Heard they were thinking of bringing it back but, from what I had read they had not done that yet. Well that is good news but, I still cannot drink it without a plane ticket so I'm still going to try to replicate it. Now at least I have some better descriptions.
 
Copy of e-mail follows:

[email protected]
to me

show details 12:25 PM (25 minutes ago)


Reply

Follow up message
Hi

Thanks for the enquiry

Sorry we do not currently export to the US

Regards

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Maxim Brewery [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 15 July 2009 05:55
To: [email protected]
Subject: website enquiry

The enquiry information is as follows:

Name:
Email: [email protected]
Contact Telephone:

Message:
Do you have any sales in the U.S.? Your products were discussed on Homebrewtalk.com, and I would like to try some.
 
Hello I'm new on here, I have been wanting to try Double Maxim again for years now. What is sold now is nothing at all what it used to be. If they are using the same recipe as they did in the sixties and seventies. All I can think is that the water must have changed. Your Dad was right the head is different. It was a cream coloured head and it clung to the glass all the way to the bottom. It was a distinct flavour that was unmistakable. I have just started brewing With a few kits that were bought for me. But the only reason I have started is to get on to the all grain brewing to see if I can get close to the DOUBLE MAXIM I remember. I think Sunderland was a hard water area it may still be. If I use what is said to be their recipe. How do I get close to hard water and more importantly how it was back then? I have good conditions here to keep the temperature steady so any help would be greatly appreciated. When I say I'm new to this. I mean brand new but I will learn.
Kind regards
Dick was originally from Navan
 
Hi Folks,

Just joined forum tafter finding this thread. I realize that this is a REALLY old thread but wanted to give you some info. on the 'Old' Double Maxim. I'm from a village near Sunderland - Murton but now live in Centennial Colorado. I really liked DM and Vaux Light Brown Ale and want to try to replicate them. As I remember - full bodied not too bitter but nice Hoppy taste and aroma - DM stronger and a bit fuller bodied than LBA. here's info I have on Double Maxim :

OG 1044
Grains :

Pale malt 76.5% ( Halcyon & Pipkin - maybe mix for flavours or different at different times ? )
Wheat malt 8.5 %
Dark Invert Sugar or Crystal malt 15% ( maybe different ingredient at different times ?)

( in UK in the 'Olden Days' there was only one crystal malt @ 40-50 L - I used to homebrew in the 80's so know this ! )

Hops ;

Challenger
Fuggles
Target
( I don't have amounts or how inputted - just types used ).

I have discussed this on another UK Forum and am trying to work out recipes for both DM and LBA. Probably can never get them exactly right and after 35 years would I ever know ? Will just be happy to get good, full bodied, hoppy Brown Ale that makes me think of the Vaux pair !

Hope you get this and find it useful

Cheers for now

Tony
 
here's info I have on Double Maxim :

OG 1044
Grains :

Pale malt 76.5% ( Halcyon & Pipkin - maybe mix for flavours or different at different times ? )
Wheat malt 8.5 %
Dark Invert Sugar or Crystal malt 15% ( maybe different ingredient at different times ?)

1044 was the OG in the 1980s, it had drifted down from ~1049 in the 1950s.

Halcyon and Pipkin are obsolete "standard" varieties of British 2-row. There's an official list of a couple of varieties of malting barley, most varieties only last a few years before they're superceded by similar-tasting varieties with better yield/disease resistance. Varieties like Maris Otter and Golden Promise aren't on the official list and are grown in tiny quantities in comparison, despite their fame among homebrewers who find it easier to swallow the 30-40% greater cost of MO/GP than commercial brewers. So just use British 2-row, varieties like Propino and Flagon are currently on the list.

I've seen 10% wheat in other recipes.

Invert sugar and crystal are completely different - it looks like a hamfisted attempt by a US homebrewer to replace invert sugar without understanding the chemistry. 15% crystal would be pretty sickly sweet, whereas 15% invert would be dry and explain why the attenuation could get up to 80% in the 1950s (per above). I'd guess a mix of Lyles Golden Syrup and treacle (more of the former than latter) would be a reasonable approximation if you didn''t want to invert your own sugar.

As for yeast, you may be able to find it in modern bottles from the Maxim range, I'm not sure if they're bottle-conditioned (I appreciate casks may be more difficult for you to find!), but I would be near-certain that the Sunderland-based Brewlab would have the yeast in their yeastbank and would be more than happy to help if you explained that you were a homebrewer looking to recreate Maxim. It's not on their main list for sale but I'm sure they have it lurking somewhere in the vaults. Just be aware that sometimes they can't always admit to the origin of a yeast but in that case in particular I'm sure they would get you the right one for cloning a particular beer.
 
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