Provincial Mild 1955 – 1959

And here we are, finally. At the end of another overlong series. With way more detail than anyone other than me is ever likely to be interested in.

I say provincial Mild Ale, but it’s more like Northern Mild Ale. Only four of the breweries aren’t in the North: Hancock (Cardiff), Home (Nottingham), William Younger (Edinburgh) and Worthington (Burton).

What’s nice is having both the Ordinary Mild and Best Milds from a couple of breweries. Dead handy, because it helps show the relationship between the two at a brewery. It’s clear that Ordinary Mild was around 1032º while Best Mild was 1035º. And that Best Mild cost 1d per pint more.

The colours differed, too. Ordinary Mild was usually darker, though in the case Ramsdens and Websters – both Yorkshire breweries – the colour wasn’t that dark. I know from earlier Lees records that they had it the other way around, Ordinary Mild being pale and Best Mild dark. I think that was unusual. “The Pub and the People”, based on an investigation into Bolton puns in the late 1930’s, states that Ordinary Mild was dark and Best Mild pale. I tend to believe that was the usual relationship.

Having said that, about the only example of a brewery I personally experienced selling both Mild and Best Mild, Thwaites, had two dark beers.

Not much else to say, other than that Worthington’s Mild was pretty bad value. Mind you, beer from the famous Burton breweries sold at a premium price. Even their Mild. Oh, and there are very few really properly brown examples. I count that as 80 plus and only five examples hit that.

Provincial Ordinary Mild 1955 - 1959
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1955	Hancock	Dark Malt			1032
1955	Hancock	XXXX			1031
1955	Lees	K			1030.0
1955	Thwaites	Mild Ale	16	0.06	1032.2	1006.1	3.39	81.06%	40
1955	Younger, Wm.	X	14		1030.2				96
1956	Lees	Mild			1031.0
1957	Lees	Mild			1032.0
1958	Home Brewery	Mild Ale		0.06	1034.5	1007.6	3.49	77.97%	60
1958	Lees	Mild			1032.0
1958	Scarsdale	Mild Ale		0.05	1035.4	1006.6	3.74	81.36%	130
1958	Vaux & Co	Mild Ale	15	0.04	1030.3	1005.8	3.18	80.86%	27
1959	Bentleys	Mild	13	0.04	1032.9	1005.4	3.44	83.59%	30
1959	Bents	Mild Ale	12	0.04	1033.2	1003.6	3.86	89.16%	55
1959	Chester Northgate Brewery Ltd	Mild Ale	14	0.07	1030.6	1005.6	3.25	81.70%	95
1959	Greenall Whitley	Mild Ale	12	0.04	1030.4	1005.5	3.23	81.91%	80
1959	Lees	Mild			1032.0
1959	Ramsdens	Mild	12	0.05	1029.2	1004.7	3.06	83.90%	45
1959	Threlfalls	Mild Ale	12	0.05	1032.8	1004.3	3.71	86.89%	50
1959	Websters	Mild	12	0.05	1031.6	1004.8	3.35	84.81%	55
	average		13.2	0.05	1031.8	1005.5	3.43	83.02%	63.6
Sources:
Lees brewing records held at the brewery.
“Cardiff Pubs and Breweries” by Brian Glover, 2005. pages 97-101
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

Provincial Best Mild 1955 - 1959
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1955	Lees	Best Mild			1035.0
1955	Lees	Bot. B			1035.0
1955	Worthington	Special Mild Ale	19	0.04	1036.9	1007.9	3.77	78.59%	85
1956	Lees	Best Mild			1035.0
1956	Lees	Bottling Beer			1035.0
1957	Lees	Best Mild			1035.0
1958	Lees	Best Mild			1035.0
1959	Lees	Best Mild			1035.0
1959	Ramsdens	Best Mild	13	0.06	1035.5	1006.5	3.63	81.69%	35
1959	Websters	Best Mild	13	0.06	1035	1005.9	3.64	83.14%	20
1959	Whitaker	Best Mild	13	0.05	1033.1	1010.2	2.86	69.18%	45
	average		14.5	0.05	1035.0	1007.6	3.47	78.15%	46.3
Sources:
Lees brewing records held at the brewery.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

And so we’re done. Maybe I should do something similar for Bitter.