Wednesday 5 August 2015

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1950 Adnams XX Mild

Time to look at Adnams other draught beer from 1950, their XX Mild.

Do you know what’s really, really weird about this beer? It’s stronger than it was in 1939. I can’t think of another beer where that statement is true. Why should that be? Because Adnams didn’t brew what I would call a full-strength Mild before WW II. They brewed what I would call a 4d Ale. A low-gravity type of Mild that was the bastard son of WW I’s Government Ale. Adnams had gravity of 1029º, while a standard Mild would have been around 1036º and a strong Mild over 1040º. XX spent most of the war at 1027º before rising to 1030º in 1950.

I quite like the look if the grist. I’ve come across a couple of interesting Mild recipes from the 1950’s. Ones that include some coloured malts like this does. Lees Mild springs to mind. This, with both amber and crystal malts, probably drank above its gravity. Obviously, there was also No.3 invert sugar and caramel to add extra colour and depth of flavour. Plus little bitterness. I’d order a pint if I saw it on the bar.

This was surely also the basis of Adnams Nut Brown Ale. There’s no separate brew of Nut Brown Ale so I assume it was a bottled version of this. It may have been primed differently before bottling, but the basic recipe would have been identical.




I’m going to keep it short again . . . . over to me . . .





1950 Adnams XX
mild malt 5.00 lb 78.43%
amber malt 0.50 lb 7.84%
crystal malt 80L 0.50 lb 7.84%
no. 3 sugar 0.25 lb 3.92%
caramel 0.13 lb 1.96%
Fuggles 90 min 0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 min 0.50 oz
OG 1030
FG 1005.5
ABV 3.24
Apparent attenuation 81.67%
IBU 20
SRM 27
Mash at 148º F
Sparge at 170º F
Boil time 120 minutes
pitching temp 61º F
Yeast WLP025 Southwold

4 comments:

petalia paul said...

the caramel seems high I am getting a very dark colour in beer smith (83 srm) or is it not brewers caramel 33000 EBC 1674 SRM.

this was inputting all % for 23 litre batch

Ron Pattinson said...

Paul,

just add the right amount of caramel to get the required colour. Caramel varies in colour.

Scott said...

You say it would drink above its gravity, but would the coloured malts really bump up the body/flavour to a noticeable degree? A final FG of 1.005 makes it look like it would be of the lighter side of things

petalia paul said...

thanks ron I plan to brew this next as fan fan of mild and a suffolk expat now living in greece