Meux Mild Ale quality 1922 - 1925

I've been amazed to discover that some people are actually enjoying this series. They've even said it to me face to face and unsolicited. All I can say is "Wow. I'm not the only weirdo."

We've now got as far as Meux, another of the big Porter brewers. They were situated in the Horseshoe Brewery at the start of Tottenham Court Road. Probably not the handiest spot for a brewery in the 20th century. Which explains why it was closed in 1921 and demolished a year later*. These beers would have been brewed at the former Thorne Brothers brewery in Nine Elms, which Meux had bought in 1914**.

You can see that there are two different beers in the table: MA, a 5d Ale and X Ale, a 7d/6d Mild. The two would almost certainly have been parti-gyled.

Let's start with the watery one. It's a pretty typical beer of its type, the gravity loitering just below 1030º and the ABV just under 3%. There's quite a big variation in the FG, making it difficult to draw any conclusions. The variation in quality isn't such a shock. A beer with such a low gravity would have been easily spoiled.

Only four of the seven samples of MA were bright. But that's better going than the flavour, where only two were any good. Overall, pretty poor with an average score of -0.57.

Now on to the posh Mild. This had the typical gravity of this class of Mild of just over 1040. Again, there's a big variation in FG and degree of attenuation. The latter is mostly around 75%, but occasionally between 80% and 90%.

Only six out of eleven were clear. Still not very good. And five had negative scores for flavour, though there were three that scored a 2. With an overall score of zero and such wise variation in scores, I'd say it was a toss up whether you were going to get ambrosia or vinegar in a Meux pub.

Meux Mild Ale quality 1922 - 1925
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Appearance	Flavour	Score
1922	MA	1005	1027	2.88	82.22%	brilliant	v fair	2
1922	MA	1005	1027.8	2.92	80.94%	not bright	going off, very musty	-3
1922	MA	1006	1028.3	2.88	78.45%	fairly bright, v dark	poor	-1
1922	MA	1006	1028.5	2.92	78.95%	v dark, bright	unpleasantly bitter	-2
1923	MA	1005	1028	2.99	82.14%	not bright	poor	-1
1923	MA	1008	1028.5	2.65	71.93%	bright	good	2
1923	MA	1006	1028.9	2.92	77.85%	bright	poor	-1
1922	X	1007	1041.3	4.49	83.54%	not bright	going off	-2
1922	X	1009	1041	4.23	79.27%	not quite bright	fair	1
1922	X	1009	1040.5	4.09	77.78%	brilliant	good	2
1922	X	1010	1039.8	3.89	75.38%	bright	good	2
1923	X	1008	1039.8	4.16	80.40%	not bright	poor	-1
1923	X	1009	1042	4.36	79.76%	bright	fair	1
1923	X	1011	1041.6	4.02	74.52%	bright	fair	1
1923	X	1010	1041.3	4.09	76.27%	hazy	good	2
1923	X	1006	1042	4.69	85.71%	bright	thin	-2
1923	X	1010	1042.2	4.24	77.25%	hazy	thin & nasty	-3
1925	X	1004	1041.2	4.86	90.29%	bright	sound without character	-1
	Average MA							-0.57
	Average X							0.00
	Average all							-0.22
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

* "A Century of British Breweries Plus" by Norman Barber, 2005, page 87.
** "A Century of British Breweries Plus" by Norman Barber, 2005, page 86.