Tyneside Brown Ale - abv 4.7 per cent; £2.25/50c (From York Press)

Tyneside Brown Ale - abv 4.7 per cent; £2.25/50c

10:00am Saturday 17th March 2012 in Beer of the week

THE Border Brewery was founded in Tweedmouth in 1777, amalgamating 120 years later with the Berwick Brewery of Berwick-upon- Tweed, and then with Johnson and Darling, also of Berwick, in 1924.

The business finally closed in the mid 1940s. In 1992, a new Border Brewery was established in part of the original 18th-century premises, relocating to Newcastle about a decade later when it took over the Tyneside-based Hadrian Brewery.

Now operating as Hadrian and Border, it has introduced a range of bottled beers including this week’s feature, Tyneside Brown, a faithful recreation of the iconic Geordie brand, Newcastle Brown Ale, so ignominiously ousted from its homeland when Heineken, the brand’s owner, turned its back on Tyneside.

Deep red-brown in colour, it has little head to speak of, but a steady stream of bubbles. The aroma is full of cakey malt, with a definite nutty edge, peppery hops, traces of treacle and banana, and a hint of Marmite.

On the palate there is roasted malt and some dark fruit, plums and damsons, more roasted nuts and a little note of coffee. A robust, tannic, hoppy bitterness develops in midpalate, and a little sweetness creeps in but is quickly swallowed up in a long, satisfying bitter finish.

A canny little beer.