Friday 12 August 2016

Provincial Mild 1955 – 1959

And here we are, finally. At the end of another overlong series. With way more detail than anyone other than me is ever likely to be interested in.

I say provincial Mild Ale, but it’s more like Northern Mild Ale. Only four of the breweries aren’t in the North: Hancock (Cardiff), Home (Nottingham), William Younger (Edinburgh) and Worthington (Burton).

What’s nice is having both the Ordinary Mild and Best Milds from a couple of breweries. Dead handy, because it helps show the relationship between the two at a brewery. It’s clear that Ordinary Mild was around 1032º while Best Mild was 1035º. And that Best Mild cost 1d per pint more.

The colours differed, too. Ordinary Mild was usually darker, though in the case Ramsdens and Websters – both Yorkshire breweries – the colour wasn’t that dark. I know from earlier Lees records that they had it the other way around, Ordinary Mild being pale and Best Mild dark. I think that was unusual. “The Pub and the People”, based on an investigation into Bolton puns in the late 1930’s, states that Ordinary Mild was dark and Best Mild pale. I tend to believe that was the usual relationship.

Having said that, about the only example of a brewery I personally experienced selling both Mild and Best Mild, Thwaites, had two dark beers.

Not much else to say, other than that Worthington’s Mild was pretty bad value. Mind you, beer from the famous Burton breweries sold at a premium price. Even their Mild. Oh, and there are very few really properly brown examples. I count that as 80 plus and only five examples hit that.

Provincial Ordinary Mild 1955 - 1959
Year Brewer Beer Price per pint d Acidity OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1955 Hancock Dark Malt 1032
1955 Hancock XXXX 1031
1955 Lees K 1030.0
1955 Thwaites Mild Ale 16 0.06 1032.2 1006.1 3.39 81.06% 40
1955 Younger, Wm. X 14 1030.2 96
1956 Lees Mild 1031.0
1957 Lees Mild 1032.0
1958 Home Brewery Mild Ale 0.06 1034.5 1007.6 3.49 77.97% 60
1958 Lees Mild 1032.0
1958 Scarsdale Mild Ale 0.05 1035.4 1006.6 3.74 81.36% 130
1958 Vaux & Co Mild Ale 15 0.04 1030.3 1005.8 3.18 80.86% 27
1959 Bentleys Mild 13 0.04 1032.9 1005.4 3.44 83.59% 30
1959 Bents Mild Ale 12 0.04 1033.2 1003.6 3.86 89.16% 55
1959 Chester Northgate Brewery Ltd Mild Ale 14 0.07 1030.6 1005.6 3.25 81.70% 95
1959 Greenall Whitley Mild Ale 12 0.04 1030.4 1005.5 3.23 81.91% 80
1959 Lees Mild 1032.0
1959 Ramsdens Mild 12 0.05 1029.2 1004.7 3.06 83.90% 45
1959 Threlfalls Mild Ale 12 0.05 1032.8 1004.3 3.71 86.89% 50
1959 Websters Mild 12 0.05 1031.6 1004.8 3.35 84.81% 55
average 13.2 0.05 1031.8 1005.5 3.43 83.02% 63.6
Sources:
Lees brewing records held at the brewery.
“Cardiff Pubs and Breweries” by Brian Glover, 2005. pages 97-101
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.


Provincial Best Mild 1955 - 1959
Year Brewer Beer Price per pint d Acidity OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1955 Lees Best Mild 1035.0
1955 Lees Bot. B 1035.0
1955 Worthington Special Mild Ale 19 0.04 1036.9 1007.9 3.77 78.59% 85
1956 Lees Best Mild 1035.0
1956 Lees Bottling Beer 1035.0
1957 Lees Best Mild 1035.0
1958 Lees Best Mild 1035.0
1959 Lees Best Mild 1035.0
1959 Ramsdens Best Mild 13 0.06 1035.5 1006.5 3.63 81.69% 35
1959 Websters Best Mild 13 0.06 1035 1005.9 3.64 83.14% 20
1959 Whitaker Best Mild 13 0.05 1033.1 1010.2 2.86 69.18% 45
average 14.5 0.05 1035.0 1007.6 3.47 78.15% 46.3
Sources:
Lees brewing records held at the brewery.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.


And so we’re done. Maybe I should do something similar for Bitter.

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