East Anglian Mild Ales 1949 - 1953

Moving south and east, next we’ll look at Mild Ales brewed in East Anglia. In the immediate post-war period there was still a considerable brewing industry in the region. Norwich, for examples, though a modestly-sized city, was still home to three decent-sized regional breweries.

It’s clear that most of the examples are on the weak side. Around a third have gravities below 1030º and only two are much over 1030º. This is what I would have expected. As a mostly rural area, the beers tended to be weaker than in urban centres.

As in the other regions, however, the rate of attenuation is very high, averaging over 80%. Contrast this with London, where the average was only 71%. There must have been a considerable difference in character between this Milds and London-brewed ones. The high attenuation means that all the examples were reasonably alcoholic, with only one below 3% ABV.

In terms of colour, this set is closer to London Milds. All the examples are reasonably dark, the palest being 50, compared to 20 to 30 for Bitter, on this scale.

East Anglian Mild Ales 1949 - 1953
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1950	Grays Brewery	X	11	1029.1				56
1950	Lacons	X	12	1032.7				100
1951	Lacons	Mild Ale	14	1031.4	1006.9	3.18	78.03%	65
1951	Lacons	X	13	1034.4				88
1952	Lacons	X	14	1031.9				92
1949	Morgans	Mild Ale	11	1027.7	1002.8	3.24	89.89%	50
1951	Morgans	Mild Ale	14	1032.4	1007.2	3.27	77.78%	65
1951	Ridley	Mild Ale	13	1030.3	1004.9	3.30	83.83%	70
1949	Steward & Patteson	Mild Ale	11	1027.7	1004.5	3.01	83.75%	50
1949	Tollemache	Mild Ale	11	1027.7	1005.4	2.89	80.51%	75
1951	Tollemache	Mild Ale	14	1028.7	1005.6	3.00	80.49%	60
1953	Tollemache	X	16	1037.7				144
1951	Young Crawshay	Mild Ale	14	1031.2	1003.7	3.58	88.14%	70
	Average		12.92	1031.0	1005.1	3.18	82.80%	75.8
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.