Southeastern Mild Ale 1950 – 1953

I’m finding our stroll through the country lanes of Mild Ale fascinating. Why didn’t I ever do this before?

One reason is the colour numbers. Whitbread used a really annoying way of recording colour, using both a red and a brown filter. Up to 40 they’re fine, being the same as the old Lovibond/EBC numbers (double the current EBC numbers). After that, they’re in an irritating 12 + 40 format. Numbers you can’t do bugger all with, in terms of comparison of for averaging.

Luckily there are a couple of places where Whitbread recorded both the red brown and EBC values. And I’ve used it to create a full conversion table. Which means I can start to seriously look at differences in the colour of Mild across the UK. It’s been very revealing.

Using London Milds as my baseline, this lot have a slightly lower average gravity. Buy a higher rate of attenuation leaving the ABV a little higher. There’s very little variation in gravity, all the beers lying 1 or 2 points above or below 1030º. London Milds, with their higher FGs, probably tasted sweeter and fuller.

There are two out-and-out pale examples, from Shepherd Neame and Fremlins. But both also brewed a dark version. As the two beers have very similar gravities in both cases, I assume they are versions of the same basic beer. Those aside, everything else is reasonably dark, though a bit paler than in London.

Southeastern Mild Ale 1950 - 1953
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1950	Cobb & Co.	X			1030.7				72
1950	Daniells	X	11		1031.2				56
1950	Gardner	X	12		1030.0				96
1950	Shepherd Neame	X			1030.1				63
1950	Simonds	Ale	12		1030.4				56
1950	Tomson & Wotton	X			1026.8				76
1950	Wells	X	12		1030.4				104
1951	Cobb & Co.	X	12		1028.4				88
1951	Daniells	Mild Ale	14	0.10	1029.9	1003.9	3.38	86.96%	110
1951	Daniells	X	12		1032.1				72
1951	Daniels	Ale	13		1032.9				86
1951	Fremlin	XXL	12		1029.4				22
1951	Fremlin	XX	12		1030.6				60
1951	JJ Young	Mild Ale	14	0.06	1030.6	1004.8	3.35	84.31%	65
1951	Morrell	Mild Ale	14	0.12	1029.7	1003.7	3.38	87.54%	80
1951	Portsmouth United	Mild Ale	14	0.04	1029.3	1005.1	3.14	82.59%	75
1951	Shepherd Neame	X	12		1031.4				24
1951	Simonds	Mild Ale	14	0.05	1032.0	1005.5	3.44	82.81%	80
1951	Simonds	Mild Dark Sweet	14	0.06	1031.5	1005.7	3.35	81.90%	80
1951	Tamplin	Mild Ale	14	0.05	1029.9	1005.2	3.21	82.61%	70
1951	Tomson & Wotton	X	12		1029.2				80
1951	Wells	Mild Ale	14	0.04	1028.6	1005	3.07	82.52%	75
1953	Benskins	X	13		1031.5				84
	Average		12.9	0.07	1030.3	1004.9	3.29	83.9%	72.8
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

Only Wales and the Southwest to go.