Tuesday 2 August 2016

Southeastern Mild Ale 1950 – 1953

I’m finding our stroll through the country lanes of Mild Ale fascinating. Why didn’t I ever do this before?

One reason is the colour numbers. Whitbread used a really annoying way of recording colour, using both a red and a brown filter. Up to 40 they’re fine, being the same as the old Lovibond/EBC numbers (double the current EBC numbers). After that, they’re in an irritating 12 + 40 format. Numbers you can’t do bugger all with, in terms of comparison of for averaging.

Luckily there are a couple of places where Whitbread recorded both the red brown and EBC values. And I’ve used it to create a full conversion table. Which means I can start to seriously look at differences in the colour of Mild across the UK. It’s been very revealing.

Using London Milds as my baseline, this lot have a slightly lower average gravity. Buy a higher rate of attenuation leaving the ABV a little higher. There’s very little variation in gravity, all the beers lying 1 or 2 points above or below 1030º. London Milds, with their higher FGs, probably tasted sweeter and fuller.

There are two out-and-out pale examples, from Shepherd Neame and Fremlins. But both also brewed a dark version. As the two beers have very similar gravities in both cases, I assume they are versions of the same basic beer. Those aside, everything else is reasonably dark, though a bit paler than in London.

Southeastern Mild Ale 1950 - 1953
Year Brewer Beer Price per pint d Acidity OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1950 Cobb & Co. X 1030.7 72
1950 Daniells X 11 1031.2 56
1950 Gardner X 12 1030.0 96
1950 Shepherd Neame X 1030.1 63
1950 Simonds Ale 12 1030.4 56
1950 Tomson & Wotton X 1026.8 76
1950 Wells X 12 1030.4 104
1951 Cobb & Co. X 12 1028.4 88
1951 Daniells Mild Ale 14 0.10 1029.9 1003.9 3.38 86.96% 110
1951 Daniells X 12 1032.1 72
1951 Daniels Ale 13 1032.9 86
1951 Fremlin XXL 12 1029.4 22
1951 Fremlin XX 12 1030.6 60
1951 JJ Young Mild Ale 14 0.06 1030.6 1004.8 3.35 84.31% 65
1951 Morrell Mild Ale 14 0.12 1029.7 1003.7 3.38 87.54% 80
1951 Portsmouth United Mild Ale 14 0.04 1029.3 1005.1 3.14 82.59% 75
1951 Shepherd Neame X 12 1031.4 24
1951 Simonds Mild Ale 14 0.05 1032.0 1005.5 3.44 82.81% 80
1951 Simonds Mild Dark Sweet 14 0.06 1031.5 1005.7 3.35 81.90% 80
1951 Tamplin Mild Ale 14 0.05 1029.9 1005.2 3.21 82.61% 70
1951 Tomson & Wotton X 12 1029.2 80
1951 Wells Mild Ale 14 0.04 1028.6 1005 3.07 82.52% 75
1953 Benskins X 13 1031.5 84
Average 12.9 0.07 1030.3 1004.9 3.29 83.9% 72.8
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252


Only Wales and the Southwest to go.

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