East Anglia and Midlands Mild Ale 1950 – 1953

I’m getting to less specific as this series progresses. And why not?

I’m far too many analyses to make a single manageable table. Splitting them up makes sense. And it also highlights regional variations. Isn’t that fun?

Starting with the middle bit of the England. Which I’ve divided into the Midlands and East Anglia. For no particular reason, other than convenience. And I have to draw the lines somewhere. What’s fascinating about these two sets is how different they are. It tells us that Mild had considerable regional variations.

Starting with the colour. All the East Anglian Milds are dark, with the exception of the one from Grays. The average, just over 80, is well in dark brown territory. While the Midlands Milds are, except for Offiler’s, in the twilight zone between pale and dark. Significantly, that’s the only example from the East Midlands. The average of 45.9 is well short of dark brown.

There’s a big difference between the gravities, too. Remove Tollemache from the East Anglian set and the remainders are weaker than every Midlands Mild, except Offiler’s. The average ABV of the Midlands set it 0.75% higher than the East Anglian ones.

Both sets have high rates of attenuation, but it’s particularly high for the Midlands. Note that the FG’s are very similar for the two sets, despite the much higher average OG for the Midlands.

What have we learned? That in the West Midlands they liked their Mild strong but quite pale. While in East Anglia they preferred it weaker and darker.

East Anglia and Midlands Mild Ale 1950 - 1953
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1950	Grays	X	11		1029.1				56
1950	Lacons	X	12		1032.7				100
1951	Lacons	Mild Ale	14	0.04	1031.4	1006.9	3.18	78.03%	65
1951	Lacons	X	13		1034.4				88
1951	Morgans	Mild Ale	14	0.04	1032.4	1007.2	3.27	77.78%	65
1951	Ridley	Mild Ale	13	0.06	1030.3	1004.9	3.30	83.83%	70
1951	Tollemache	Mild Ale	14	0.04	1028.7	1005.6	3.00	80.49%	60
1951	Wells & Winch	Mild Ale	14	0.05	1029.3	1008.6	2.68	70.65%	80
1951	Young Crawshay	Mild Ale	14	0.06	1031.2	1003.7	3.58	88.14%	70
1952	Lacons	X	14		1031.9				92
1953	Tollemache	X	16		1037.7				144
	Average		13.5	0.05	1031.7	1006.2	3.17	79.82%	80.9
1950	Ansell	Mild Ale	13	0.04	1034.8	1005.2	3.85	85.06%	50
1950	Bass, Burton	Mild Ale	15	0.07	1041.4	1008	4.34	80.68%	40.1
1950	Mitchell & Butler	Mild Ale	13	0.04	1034.6	1005.4	3.80	84.39%	37
1950	Mitchell & Butler	Mild Ale	17	0.05	1034.5	1003.8	4.00	88.99%	38
1950	Mitchell & Butler	X	15		1038.4				41
1950	Offilers	Mild Ale	13	0.06	1031.2	1004.7	3.45	84.94%	70
1951	Ansell	Mild Ale	15	0.07	1038.3	1005.7	4.25	85.12%	45
	Average		14.4	0.06	1036.2	1005.5	3.95	84.86%	45.9
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252

The North and Scotland next.