Whitbread Mild Ale 1965 - 1973

It's a sad day, as another series of posts reaches its conclusion. 1973 is the end of the road for Whitbread's Mild. At least for the version brewed at Chiswell Street. I think it's still produced somewhere in the UK.

It probably did live on a couple of years longer, until 1976 when the brewery closed. But the final brewing book is missing. Bit annoying that. It may just be that they've got it catalogued incorrectly. (Well, I know it's miscatalogued, because all their brewing books are. If you order using the LMA's catalogue you'll get a brewing book for a different year than you wanted. That's why I use my own catalogue, which is correct.) So it may be in the archive somewhere.

I'm quite glad that I divided the years for this series. Because, while the last set showed a total stability in the recipe, this time it's all over the shop. But we'll be getting to that later.

The decline of Mild is clear to see in the brewing records. There are fewer batches of Mild and those batches are smaller, mostly 200 to 400 barrels. Which, admittedly, is still quite a lot of beer. I would guess that the vast majority was sold in keg form. I remember that, while in the North and Midlands cask Mild was pretty common, it had virtually disappeared in London by the mid 1970's. Only a few Young's or Fuller's pubs still kept it.

Whitbread Mild Ale 1965 - 1973
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
26th Mar	1965	Best Ale	1030.7	1008.7	2.91	71.66%	5.54	0.68	1	0.75	64º	7	105
24th Mar	1966	Best Ale	1031.1	1009.6	2.84	69.13%	4.75	0.65	1	1.25	64º	7	100
22nd Feb	1967	Best Mild	1030.5	1009.5	2.78	68.85%	5.25	0.64	1	1	64º	6	110
21st Jul	1968	Best Mild	1030.5	1008.5	2.91	72.13%	5.25	0.65	1	1	64º	6	120
22nd May	1970	B. Mild	1030.8	1007.9	3.03	74.35%	3.42	0.43	1	1	64º	7	130
17th Dec	1971	B. Mild	1030.8	1008.4	2.96	72.73%	3.07	0.40	1	1	64º	7	110
17th Feb	1972	B. Mild	1030.9	1007.8	3.06	74.76%	3.22	0.43	1	1	64º	5	115
26th Jan	1973	B. Mild	1030.8	1010.8	2.65	64.94%	3.42	0.44	1	1	64º	6	110
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/132, LMA/4453/D/01/134, LMA/4453/D/01/135, LMA/4453/D/01/137, LMA/4453/D/09/140 and LMA/4453/D/09/141.

The gravity was rock solid at a few points either side of 1031º. Though because the attenuation never quite reached 75%, it was mostly a little under 3% ABV. I sometimes wonder how anyone in the past could get pissed on these piss-weak beers. Maybe they didn't ever get more than a little merry. Or had a double whisky with every pint.

The grists. There's so much to talk about here. So much, I couldn't fit it all in one table. Amazingly, there's only one ingredient common to this set of beers: crystal malt. If you can remember back as far as the last set, every single beer had the same four ingredients in the grist: mild malt, crystal malt, No. 3 invert and the proprietary sugar Hay M.

Whitbread Mild Ale grists 1965 - 1973
Date	Year	Beer	OG	hops	pale malt	choc. Malt	crystal malt	MA malt	flaked barley	torrefied barley	no. 1 sugar	no. 3 sugar	other sugar
26th Mar	1965	Best Ale	1030.7	KT and Worcester hops.			5.88%	80.00%				10.98%	3.14%
24th Mar	1966	Best Ale	1031.1	MK and Worcester hops.			7.25%	64.05%	13.60%				15.11%
22nd Feb	1967	Best Mild	1030.5	MK and KT hops.			7.82%	68.46%	13.69%		7.17%		2.85%
21st Jul	1968	Best Mild	1030.5	MK and WGV hops.	68.46%		7.82%		13.69%		7.17%		2.85%
22nd May	1970	B. Mild	1030.8	MK, KT and EK hops.	78.39%		7.65%		5.64%		5.37%		2.95%
17th Dec	1971	B. Mild	1030.8	MK and Hants hops.	65.88%	3.23%	9.04%			9.47%			12.38%
17th Feb	1972	B. Mild	1030.9	MK and Hants hops.	68.81%	3.76%	9.14%			10.04%			8.24%
26th Jan	1973	B. Mild	1030.8	Hallertau and Worcester hops	69.09%	3.64%	9.09%			10.00%			8.18%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/132, LMA/4453/D/01/134, LMA/4453/D/01/135, LMA/4453/D/01/137, LMA/4453/D/09/140 and LMA/4453/D/09/141.

The biggest change is in the base malt, which changed in 1968 from mild malt to pale malt. Why did they do that? Probably just to standardise across their range. And, as Mild became less important in terms of sales, buying a separate base malt for it probably seemed frivolous.

More surprising than that was the change from No. 3 to No. 1 sugar. With the exception of WW I, it had been a constant in Whitbread's Mild since the 1890's. Not that No. 1 lasted long. It was dropped in 1971, when Whitbread switched to all proprietary sugars. Several of them. LP5, CDM and WSM. I think I know what that last one means: Whitbread Special Mix. Not sure about the others, but I suspect CDM is a dark sugar containing caramel.

Whitbread Mild Ale other sugars 1965 - 1973
Date	Year	Beer	OG	Duttson	Hay M	raw cane syrup	WSM	LP5	CDM
26th Mar	1965	Best Ale	1030.7		3.14%
24th Mar	1966	Best Ale	1031.1		3.02%	12.09%
22nd Feb	1967	Best Mild	1030.5	2.85%
21st Jul	1968	Best Mild	1030.5	2.85%
22nd May	1970	B. Mild	1030.8	2.95%
17th Dec	1971	B. Mild	1030.8				10.76%		1.61%
17th Feb	1972	B. Mild	1030.9					6.45%	1.79%
26th Jan	1973	B. Mild	1030.8					6.67%	1.52%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/132, LMA/4453/D/01/134, LMA/4453/D/01/135, LMA/4453/D/01/137, LMA/4453/D/09/140 and LMA/4453/D/09/141.

Another big change in the 1970's was the addition of chocolate malt. I think that might well be the first time they'd ever used a dark grain in their Dark Mild. That's one of the things that cracks me up when I see homebrew Dark Mild recipes that use black or chocolate malt. Few of the Dark Milds I've come across in brewing records got all their colour from dark malt. And a majority got all of it from sugar and caramel.

In the previous set, the crystal malt content was around 6%. You can seet that increased to almost 8% in 1966 and 9% in 1971. That would presumably have added body and sweetness to the beer.

I've just been thinking about one of the things missing from Whitbread logs: priming sugars. I know that Whitbread primed their beers from the 1920's onwards, because Sydney Nevile mentions suggesting it his book "Seventy Rolling Years". Which means the gravity of the Mild would have been a little higher than the brewing records indicate. Hang on. LP5 . . . . could the LP stand for Liquid Primings?

For me, one of the most striking features of post WW II brewing records is the almost total absence of American hops. Very few foreign hops at all make an appearance. Usually in the form of fancy Continental hops like, in this case, Hallertau, or Saaz. You'll know why if you were paying attention during my series on hops. After WW II Britain was pretty much self-sufficient in hops for the first time in almost 100 years. Until the collapse of the British hops industry which, funnily enough, started in 1974, just after the period I'm covering here.

I just took the trouble to look at the hopping rate. It dropped by about 50% in 1970. Less than half a pound a barrel really is bugger all.

Right. That's Mild done. What should I do next? There's PA, IPA, a couple of Brown Ales, Strong Ales, Stouts and my personal fave, Gold Label. Suggest away. No guarantee I'll pay any attention, mind. Or do you want me to reveal the origins of Whitbread Trophy first?