Let's Brew Wednesday - 1943 Whitbread Oat Mild

It seems like these recipes never appear on Wednesday. Never mind. 67 years have already passed before this recipe was published. One day won't make much difference.

You may remember (if your memory id better than mine) that I posted about this Oat Mild a week or so ago. It looked so fabulicious  I asked Kristen to knock up the recipe. It's an example of a brewery following government directives to use oats as a barley malt substitute.

Though it was officially called XX it's really a 4d Ale, a type of beer with its origins in the low-gravity Government Ale of the final years of WW I. You could certainly session such beers. To be honest, you could probably knock back a couple of pints an hour of this stuff and never get properly pissed.

One point. The colour was darker than Kristen lists below. It's a bit tricky to convert the colour scale Whitbread used at this time, but I reckon it's the equivalent of around 90 EBC.



Now over to Kristen for all the brewy-type details . . . . .

Whitbread - 1943 - Oat Mild
General info: Oat mild...WTH is an oat mild!? Ok, its not REALLY an oat mild. However this is one of the first instances where oats become a major part of the grist of any of ‘ beers. 1943 was not a good year for supply of regular ingredients; Something about a one-balled, tooth brush mustachioed megalomaniac from the east. All in all, a very low gravity neat little 'mild' that teaches us about the lengths people went to still get beer on the table.
Beer Specifics			Recipe by percentages
Gravity (OG)	1.028		10.2% American 6-row			1.9% Cane Sugar
Gravity (FG)	1.008		61.1% Mild Malt			6% No3 Invert
ABV	2.67%		12.4% Flaked oats
Apparent attenuation	71.43%		8.5% Crystal 75L
Real attenuation	58.51%
IBU	11.0		Mash	60min@157°F		0.88qt/lb
SRM	9.0			60min@69.4°C		1.84L/kg
EBC	23.5
			Boil	60 min
	Homebrew @ 70%				Craft @ 80%
Grist	5gal		19L		10bbl		10hl
American 6-row	0.56	lb	0.255	kg	30.2	lb	11.67	kg
Mild Malt	3.34	lb	1.521	kg	181.21	lb	70.01	kg
Flaked oats	0.68	lb	0.310	kg	36.67	lb	14.17	kg
Crystal 75L	0.46	lb	0.209	kg	25.07	lb	9.69	kg
Cane Sugar	0.10	lb	0.046	kg	5.59	lb	2.16	kg
No3 Invert	0.33	lb	0.150	kg	17.9	lb	6.92	kg
Hops
Goldings 4.5% 60min	0.57	oz	16.2	g	35.43	oz	0.856	kg
Fermentation	62°F /16.7°C
Yeast	Safale S04
	WLP007 Dry English ale
	Wyeast 1099 Whitbred ale
Tasting Notes: Raw bread dough, porrage and lightly toasted bread. Hints of figs, plums and a rummy raisin note in the end. Very smooth and mouthfilling which finishs quite dry. Very refreshing and easy to drink, tastes no where near as smal as it is.

Ingredients and technique

Grist & such

A very neat little grist for a low gravity mild. Nearly everything in this recipe is strictly from the UK. About 10% American 6-row malt would have been definitely left over from pre-war years. Nearly 25% of this beer is adjunct with the rest comng from the mild malt. Its very hard to duplicate the flavor of mild malt so try and find some. The invert No3 is only 6% so if you miss it that’s not a massive problem. Get some dark unrefined sugar as a possible substitute.

Hops

Hops? Yeah, they are here somewhere. Oh, here they are. 0.76lb/ bbl is very little which the 11bu’s indicate. Only a single addition at the beginning would have done it along with a healthy pressing of the hops.

Mash & Boil

A very high mash temperature would really be the only way that they could possibly get any sort of body left in this beer without having to add more No3 invert…which they didn’t have.  The boil is a very short 60min which is very uncommon but you have to save money and fuel some how.

Fermentation, Conditioning & Serving

A cool fermentation temp would have ensured a good amount of sweetness. This thing fermented out in 3 days, into the cask on the 4^th day and then off to the pubs. Not something that sat around for even a little time. Condition to about 2vol of CO₂ or so and drink copious amounts of.

Gyling & Blending

There is a gyle for this. It’s probably one of the most extensive and exhausting gyles I’ve seen anywhere, at any brewery. Four different gyles were used, along with a good amount of return, to blend this beer and ferment in 4 separate fermenters each one having exactly the same starting gravity. Crazy cool. HOWEVER, not something we need to worry about for this beer.