Let's Brew - 1915 Noakes X

Noakes was a small South London brewery, located close to London Bridge station. Brewing ceased in 1920, with all beer being produced in the company’s other brewery in Windsor. When they were acquired by Courage in 1930, Noakes owned 120 tied houses.

The early effects of WW I are clear in the gravity, which is lower than the 1050º which was standard before 1914 for London Mild.

The grist is odd in a couple of ways. Specifically in the tiny amount of flaked maize. I really can’t see what the point was, unless they were just using up the stock they had. Later in the war maize would disappear entirely from UK beers as the war situation made its importation impossible.

There’s an awful lot of sugar in this beer, mostly in the form of No. 3 invert. They was a small amount of a proprietary sugar called CDM. I’ve just bumped up the No. 3 quantity to include that.

Once again, the colour comes principally from sugar: No. 3 invert and caramel. The amount of black malt is so small that it doesn’t influence the final shade much.

1915 Noakes X Ale
pale malt	6.50 lb	69.00%
crystal malt 120 L	0.50 lb	5.31%
black malt	0.07 lb	0.74%
flaked maize	0.05 lb	0.53%
No. 3 invert sugar	2.25 lb	23.89%
caramel 2000 SRM	0.05 lb	0.53%
Cluster 90 mins	0.50 oz
Cluster 30 mins	0.50 oz
OG	1045
FG	1010.5
ABV	4.56
Apparent attenuation	76.67%
IBU	18
SRM	23
Mash at	142º F
After underlet	150º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	63º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

This is one of the dozens of recipes in my book Mild! plus. Which is avaiable in both paperback:

 

and hardback formats: