Whitbread Mild Ale 1955 - 1964

I've made an executive decision to carry on with Mild. This post and one more will follow Whitbread's Mild until the closure of Chiswell Street in the early 1970's.

I won't pretend that there's going to be any great excitement in this stuff. Oh, one thing I forgot last time. Did you notice how after 1950 the gravity never fell below 1030. There's a very good reason for that. The way duty was calculated changed in that year. Until then, there was a flat rate charged per 36 gallons of up to 1027 gravity, plus an additional amount for every degree above 1027. In 1950 that was changed to a gravity of 1030. It meant that you paid the duty for a beer of 1030, even if your beer was just 1027. It made brewing a beer below 1030 financially unattractive.

Which begs the question, had the rules not changed, would Whitbread have continued to brew a sub-1030 Mild. And was the rule changed designed to bump up the gravity of the weakest beers to 1030?

You can see that Whitbread's stronger Mild, XXX, didn't last long. Introduced in 1954, it was discontinued in 1955. But not before the gravity had been cut from 1037.5 to 1034.8. The mid-1950's was when stronger beers of various kinds were introduced. Mostly they were stronger Bitters, but there were some Milds, too. Presumably sales of XXX didn't take off. Then again, that was exactly the period when Mild's decline began. You can notice the fall in demand from the batch sizes. Until 1951 Whitbread brewed their Mild in batches of 800 or 1500 barrels. After that date it was 400 or 800 barrel batches. A pretty sure sign of a fall in demand.

Whitbread Mild Ale 1955 - 1964
Date	Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenuation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	length of fermentation (days)	colour
20th Oct	1955	Best Ale	1030.9	1009.5	2.83	69.26%	5.59	0.71	1	0.75	65º	8	105
27th Jan	1955	MA	1030.9	1009.5	2.83	69.26%	5.56	0.71	1	0.75	65º	6	115
24th Oct	1955	XXX	1034.8	1010.0	3.28	71.26%	5.56	0.80	1	1.58	65º	8	115
7th Nov	1956	Best Ale	1030.0	1008.5	2.84	71.67%	5.56	0.68	1	1	65º	7	105
11th Jan	1957	Best Ale	1030.4	1010.0	2.70	67.11%	5.56	0.71	1	0.75	65º	6	100
6th Mar	1958	Best Ale	1030.7	1008.5	2.94	72.31%	5.67	0.70	1	0.75	65º	6	110
1st Jul	1959	Best Ale	1030.5	1010.5	2.65	65.57%	5.56	0.71	1	1.75	64º	7	115
2nd Mar	1960	Best Ale	1030.6	1010.0	2.73	67.32%	5.67	0.70	1	1	64º	7	110
4th Oct	1961	Best Ale	1032.5	1009.8	3.00	69.85%	5.51	0.70	1	1	64º	7	105
6th Mar	1962	Best Ale	1032.2	1009.2	3.04	71.43%	5.35	0.69	1	0.75	64º	8	100
26th Mar	1963	Best Ale	1031.0	1008.6	2.96	72.26%	5.61	0.70	1	0.75	64º	9	105
28th May	1964	Best Ale	1030.7	1009.4	2.82	69.38%	5.84	0.72	1	0.75	64º	7	105
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/122, LMA/4453/D/01/123, LMA/4453/D/01/124, LMA/4453/D/01/125, LMA/4453/D/01/126, LMA/4453/D/01/127, LMA/4453/D/01/129, LMA/4453/D/01/130 and LMA/4453/D/01/131.

There was one definite change in brewing technique between this period and the last: the fermentation time was extended. In the late 1940's and early 1950's, it averaged 5 days but could be as few as 4. In this time period, it averaged around 7 days. I have no explanation for why this occurred. It's unlikely they carried out a major refit of the brewery in the austerity years just after the war.

The rate of attenuation is quite poor, averaging 69.7% for the samples in the table, down from the 71.5% for the set from 1945-1954. Which leaves almost every example below 3% ABV.

Whitbread Mild Ale 1955 - 1964
Date	Year	Beer	OG	hops	crystal malt	MA malt	no. 3 sugar	Hay M sugar
20th Oct	1955	Best Ale	1030.9	MK hops.	6.27%	79.44%	11.15%	3.14%
27th Jan	1955	MA	1030.9	MK and EK hops.	6.27%	79.44%	11.15%	3.14%
24th Oct	1955	XXX	1034.8	MK hops.	6.27%	79.44%	11.15%	3.14%
7th Nov	1956	Best Ale	1030.0	MK and KT hops.	6.27%	79.44%	11.15%	3.14%
11th Jan	1957	Best Ale	1030.4	MK hops.	6.27%	79.44%	11.15%	3.14%
6th Mar	1958	Best Ale	1030.7	MK hops.	6.41%	79.00%	11.39%	3.20%
1st Jul	1959	Best Ale	1030.5	MK hops.	6.27%	79.44%	11.15%	3.14%
2nd Mar	1960	Best Ale	1030.6	MK and Worcester hops.	6.41%	79.00%	11.39%	3.20%
4th Oct	1961	Best Ale	1032.5	MK, KT and Worcester hops.	6.23%	78.89%	11.76%	3.11%
6th Mar	1962	Best Ale	1032.2	EK, Saaz and ESX hops.	6.10%	79.32%	11.53%	3.05%
26th Mar	1963	Best Ale	1031.0	MK, Yugo and Worcester hops.	6.41%	79.00%	11.39%	3.20%
28th May	1964	Best Ale	1030.7	MK and K hops.	6.07%	79.35%	11.34%	3.24%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/122, LMA/4453/D/01/123, LMA/4453/D/01/124, LMA/4453/D/01/125, LMA/4453/D/01/126, LMA/4453/D/01/127, LMA/4453/D/01/129, LMA/4453/D/01/130 and LMA/4453/D/01/131.

Now the recipe. And it is the recipe. Just four ingredients in the grist - mild ale malt, crystal malt, No. 3 invert and Hay's M - always in the same proportions. This shouldn't be a surprise. 1955 to 1975 was one of the most stable periods in British brewing. You could almost stay stagnation, at least in terms of top-fermenting beers. Average gravity barely changed at all 1951 to 1993. If you looked at the previous 40-odd years - a period stretching back to before WW I - you'd see average gravity varying between 1053 and 1033*.

Average OG of beer brewed in the UK 1951 - 1993
year	OG	year	OG	year	OG
1951	1036.99	1966	1037.63	1981	1037.30
1952	1037.07	1967	1037.46	1982	1037.20
1953	1036.87	1968	1037.36	1983	1037.20
1954	1036.97	1969	1037.14	1984	1037.40
1955	1037.13	1970	1036.90	1985	1037.40
1956	1037.22	1971	1036.90	1986	1037.50
1957	1037.42	1972	1036.90	1987	1038.00
1958	1037.48	1973	1037.00	1988	1037.70
1959	1037.52	1974	1037.10	1989	1038.20
1960	1037.25	1975	1037.30	1990	1038.00
1961	1037.41	1976	1037.50	1991	1037.70
1962	1037.70	1977	1037.50	1992	1037.30
1963	1037.70	1978	1037.60	1993	1037.43
1964	1037.66	1979	1037.60
1965	1037.67	1980	1037.60
Sources:
Statistical Handbook of the British Beer & Pub Association 2005, p. 7
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50
Brewers' Almanack 1971, p. 45
Brewers' Almanack 1962, p. 48

The hopping is almost as boring as the grist, consisting mostly of Kent hops with only the odd Eastern European ones thrown in for variety. It always pleases me to see Saaz in British beers. No idea why.

That's it for today. Next time we'll cover the rest of the 1960's and the couple of years the brewery was open in the 1970's.





* Sources: Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50
“The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1988” page 7