Sunday 10 November 2019

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.

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