Let's Brew Wednesday - 1959 Adnams XXX

It’s May, the weather is wonderful – what could be more appealing than a nice watery 1950’s Mild?

And this version of Adnams XXX Mild, at under 3% ABV, is certainly pretty watery. Though perhaps not quite as watery as it looks. I have a Whitbread Gravity Book analysis for Adnams Mild from 1967 and that lists the OG as 1033.5º.  Yet a brewing record from the same year gives the OG as 1031º.

Why the discrepancy? Probably because of primings. Most breweries don’t bother listing them in the brewing record. When they do, 2º or 3º is typical for the gravity boost primings give to a beer of this gravity. Primings probably account for the difference between the calculated colour and the one given in the analysis, which is around 20 SRM.

To simulate this, you could add another 0.5 lb of No. 3 invert at racking time. That should get you somewhere near the colour and effective OG.

It’s surprising how different this recipe is from 1950 XX. The earlier beer contained amber malt and caramel, but no pale malt.

I know little about the hops, other than that they were English and from the 1957 and 1958 harvests.

1959 Adnams XXX
mild malt	3.75 lb	57.69%
pale malt	0.75 lb	11.54%
crystal malt 80L	0.75 lb	11.54%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.25 lb	19.23%
Fuggles 95 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.25 oz
OG	1030
FG	1008
ABV	2.91
Apparent attenuation	73.33%
IBU	20
SRM	13
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	95 minutes
pitching temp	60.5º F
Yeast	WLP025 Southwold