PUB-goers in the North-East can experience a genuine taste of the past after a century-old beer recipe has been revived by brewers.

Twenty pubs in the region will be supplied with the beer, which has been made using a recipe that has lain dormant for the past 100 years.

The beer is a genuine reproduction of a beer brewed in 1901 at Stockton's Castle Brewery. The Stockton site was owned by North Eastern Breweries, a conglomerate of small, independent breweries based across the region at the turn of the 19th Century.

Sunderland-based Darwin Brewery has revived the beer, called North Eastern 1901, which will be available in 20 JD Wetherspoon's pubs in the area.

Steven Proudfoot, of the micro-brewery, said: "Most breweries claim their ales have a rich history, when in fact the recipe and ingredients would have changed many, many times to meet trends and cut costs. North Eastern 1901 is as close to the original as you could possibly get, even down to the slight yeast flavours that had been lost."

The beer is made using a style of malt and hops from the era, as well as "North-Eastern Brewery yeast", to make the ale as authentic as possible.