East Anglian Brown Ale after WW II

The final installment about Brown Ale just after WW II. It's not exactly been a white-knuckle ride. At least I'm back working on my book. I've been very lazy the past month. Which is unusual for me. With writing. I'm lazy as fuck in every other aspect of my life.

As a fairly rural part of the country, I’d expect beers from East Anglia to be on the weak side. And I’d be right. The average OG is equal lowest with the South. Though there is only one example under 1030º, the others aren’t much above it. They all look very much like bottled Ordinary Mild in terms of strength.

The colour looks about right, too, for Mild. They’re all reasonably dark brown, but nothing too extreme at either end of the colour spectrum. But, in general, a good bit paler than London versions of the style. Where the palest was 80 and a good percentage over 100.

There’s some variation in the rate of attenuation. Again, nothing too extreme, from 69% to 85%. Which average out to about average attenuation.

Considering the strength, prices seem relatively high. The average is one of the highest at 19.5d per pint. Which, considering you get a pint of draught Mild in London for 13-14d, is quite a lot.

East Anglian Brown Ale after WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1951	East Anglian Brewery	Brown Ale	28	1032.6	1008.3	3.15	74.54%	100
1948	Lacons	Brown Ale	19	1031.2	1009.6	2.79	69.23%	80
1952	Morgans	Brown Ale	22	1034.7	1005.2	3.84	85.01%	71
1952	Steward & Patteson	Brown Ale	23	1032.5	1010.3	2.87	68.31%	67
1946	Tollemache	Golden Brown	13	1029.2	1006.1	3.00	79.11%	83
1947	Tollemache	Brown Ale	16	1030.4	1006.8	3.06	77.63%	67
1950	Tollemache	Brown Ale	15	1030.1	1005.6	3.18	81.40%	61
1952	Tollemache	Brown Ale	20	1032.5	1007.7	3.22	76.31%	80
	Average		19.5	1031.7	1007.5	3.14	76.44%	76.1
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

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.