Southern Mild Ales 1949 - 1954

The next table covers a large area of southern England. Pretty much everywhere in the Southeast, except for London.

If you removed the Ind Coope beers the averages would look very different. A couple of examples from them are unusually strong, one even over 1040º. An exceptionally high gravity for a Mild in the post-war years.

Most of the other examples are either just above or below 1030º. Very high degrees of attenuation, however, leave almost all above 3% ABV. With the exception of London, very high attenuation seems to have been a feature of most Mild Ales after the war. 

The very low FGs of these beers are even more significant when you consider that many, if not all, would have been primed with a sugar solution at racking time. Based on the practice at Barclay Perkins, which recording primings in its brewing records, the primings would have raised the gravity by 2-3º. That many of the beers have FG2 below 1005º tells me that there must have been a considerable amount of secondary fermentation in the cask.

The colours are all over the place, ranging from 20.5 (the shade of a pale Bitter) to 120 (very dark brown). Several of the breweries – Fremlin, Ind Coope and Shepherd Neame – all produced both pale and dark versions of Mild. That said, the overwhelming majority of examples are dark.

Southern Mild Ales 1949 - 1954
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1953	Benskins	X	13	1031.5				84
1949	Brickwoods	Mild Ale	13	1033.2	1004.8	3.70	85.54%	20.5
1951	Cobb & Co.	X	12	1028.4				88
1951	Daniells	Mild Ale	14	1029.9	1003.9	3.38	86.96%	110
1951	Flowers	Mild Ale	15	1030.7	1003.9	3.49	87.30%	120
1951	Fremlin	XXL	12	1029.4				22
1951	Fremlin	XX	12	1030.6				60
1950	Gardner	X	12	1030.0				96
1950	Ind Coope	MA	12	1027.9	1008.9	2.46	68.10%	67
1950	Ind Coope	Mild Ale	15	1039.2	1009.6	3.84	75.51%	75
1951	Ind Coope	Ale	12	1029.4	1008	2.77	72.79%	52
1951	Ind Coope	X	13	1030.9				26
1952	Ind Coope	X	13	1036.7				102
1953	Ind Coope	X	14	1033.4				100
1954	Ind Coope	Strong Mild Ale	19	1043.5	1010.7	4.26	75.40%	110
1951	JJ Young	Mild Ale	14	1030.6	1004.8	3.35	84.31%	65
1951	Morrell	Mild Ale	14	1029.7	1003.7	3.38	87.54%	80
1949	Portsmouth United	Mild Ale	13	1029.3	1003.1	3.41	89.42%	19
1951	Portsmouth United	Mild Ale	14	1029.3	1005.1	3.14	82.59%	75
1950	Shepherd Neame	X		1030.1				63
1951	Shepherd Neame	X	12	1031.4				24
1951	Simonds	Mild Dark Sweet	14	1031.5	1005.7	3.35	81.90%	80
1951	Tamplin	Mild Ale	14	1029.9	1005.2	3.21	82.61%	70
1951	Tomson & Wotton	X	12	1029.2				80
1951	Wells	Mild Ale	14	1028.6	1005	3.07	82.52%	75
1951	Wells & Winch	Mild Ale	14	1029.3	1008.6	2.68	70.65%	80
	Average		13.4	1031.3	1006.1	3.30	80.88%	70.9
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.