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Thursday, 3 July 2008

Mild 1920 - 2005

Now I've got some modern beer details (thanks Ted and Mark) I can start comparing modern beers with those of 50 years ago. I've begun with Mild.

I've calculated the average OG of Milds from various periods:

1920-1926 1041.9
1933-1939 1036.2
1940-1951 1031.3
1952-1969 1032.5
2002/2005 1037.8

I was genuinely shocked to see that the average OG of Mild has increased significantly, a full 5 points, since 1969. I had expected it to have remained much the same.

Of course, this is an average of the OG's of different beers, not an average OG for all Mild sold. That would most likely be significantly lower for 2002/2005, as some of the biggest sellers - Tetley's, for example - have OG's in the low 1030's. It's clear that micros, in general, brew stronger Milds than the ones I drank in the 1970's and 1980's.

Do you think Mild will make it back to the heady 1040+ average of the 1920's? Or will it die out first?

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4 July 2008 at 04:10

    I can't see mild dying out in the near future, largely thanks to CAMRA, but I can't see its average OG climbing much more either - at least not without a similar rise in the average OGs of other styles.

    What your post might suggest instead is a polarisation of OGs - on the one hand the newer microbrewed milds are fuelling an OG rise, but on the other hand the long-established milds are fairly static. Is the same true of any other long-established milds?

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  2. Ron Pattinson4 July 2008 at 09:47

    Tom, Bateman's OG is pretty low, as I recall. I don't know what the biggest sellers are amongst Milds. Tetley's used to be number 1. I would guess it's still there or thereabouts.

    Don't a lot of micros only brew their Milds occasionally? Though now I think about it, the same is true of Fuller's.

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