Tetley cask Mild specifications (part two)

No, I hadn't forgotten about my series on Tetley's beers in 1985.  Loads more to go just on the cask beers. Then there's all the brewery-conditioned beers. Lots of fun just waiting for us.

Exciting stuff in this installment. Little things like the grist. Which isn't all that exciting, as it turns out.

To my total non surprise, the grist turns out to be very similar. Th only difference is in the sugar. Bitter had two different types, T3000 of LPW in addition to S. G. T. While Mild only had the latter. Other than that, it's just the quantity of caramel that distinguishes the two beers.

How much coloured malt is there? None at all. Not even crystal malt. All of the colour comes from caramel. Did I realise this when I was shovelling down gallons of the stuff in the 1970s and 1980s? Of course I fucking didn't. I assumes the colour came from crystal and chocolate malt. Or something like that. How wrong I was.

When I first started looking at brewing records I soon noticed that recipes weren't as I expected them to be. Once I'd finished being all snobby about flaked maize and sugar, I discovered how brewers had actually brewed the beers I loved. And I embraced it. Like a a long-lost child. Or something. No, I remember what it was. I started shouting at home brewers telling them they'd got UK beer totally wrong.

3. EXTRACT DERIVATION (%)
a) White Malt	75 - 80
b) Torrified Barley	5 - 10
c) ERC 4ths	-
d) S.G.T.	10 - 15
e) Caramel	Variable
Source:
Tetley Beer and Malt Specifications, 1985, beer page 8.

I assume that the torrefied barley is there for head retention. Why barley and not wheat, which was more common in this role? No idea. I'm sure there must have been a reason, though. As the same quantity of S.G.T. was used in the Bitter, it couldn't have been very dark. Given it was only 21 EBC.

No idea what ERC 4ths is. Nor why it was included in the table when the quantity is zero.

The water isn't very exciting, being from the same sources and treated the same as for cask Bitter.

5. LIQUOR
a) Source	Town/Borehole Mixture (2 : 1 Ratio)
b) Treatment	H2SO4, Auto-Injection (Variable)
c) Filtration (borehole only)	Sand filtered but not chlorinated
Source:
Tetley Beer and Malt Specifications, 1985, beer page 8.

Next time we'll be looking at mashing.