Sunday 23 January 2022

Mild darkening

A quick question. How interested are you in the colour of Mild in the late 19th century? A pretty specific question, I know.

Just that I'm currently researching/writing about Mild Ale for my next book but one. Including writing loads of recipes (67 so far). The Mild recipes are giving me some more insight into its colour.

For the purposes of the book, I only need to write the recipes for a small selection of the brewing records I have. To find out what all the the beers looked like, I'd need to run the lot through my brewing software. As I try not to waste my time on research without a good reason, I might not bother. Hence asking if you're interested.

Now I think of it, there is a damn good reason for me to go ahead. It will fit really well in that putative book. Well, not quite so putative. It is 32,000 words. Mostly recipes.

I take that back. I don't need your approval. I can see the point. Why on earth didn't I see that immediately? Mild colour is a topic that's occupied my every waking thought for two decades.

Expect more on this topic. Whether you like it or not.

One teaser. One Mild recipe I have crunched through BeerSmith came out at 22.8 SRM. Properly dark brown. A typical Dark Mild colour. All from malt. No sugar to muddy the waters.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

One thing I wonder about color is not just darkness but tint. I'd be curious if there are signs of brewers trying for specific shades like chestnut or working to avoid muddy, manure-y shades.

The small bit of crystal in some of the beers in the other post today has me wondering if they were adjusting the color they were getting from the adjuncts in some way.

Hegemonkey said...

I'm interested. The color/colour of milds have been a defining character. Most modern style guides point out that they are dark. If you find details on how the style evolved, then that's interesting.

Christian said...

A big question for me. Especially the reasons for darkening the milds and why mild malt lost its role for the beer style over the centuries