Modern mild - am I really the only brewer who makes it?

[Oneflewover]

Nooooo! You’re not looking for boring in a mild, or in any other beer for that matter (well, maybe lager! ).

Edit: PS Yes, Nottingham is a bit meh!

I'm not, I was suggesting that he might be .

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I'm not, I was suggesting that he might be .

I know.

 

[user 43495]

I'm afraid I will have to disagree, although you certainly won't inflame my ire . The same base wort fermented with, say, 3 very different yeasts will result in 3 very different beers. Similarly a chloride forward liquor will produce a completely different beer than a sulphate forward liquor.

Nottingham is ok, it's just.... well, boring. It tends to mute hops, doesn't have much character at all, and ferments out quite dry. And that may be exactly what you are looking for in a mild

The wet I used to get from Batham's was 'trained' to attenuate at the quarter gravity stage, which is fine if that's what you need. Nowadays having a very old-fashioned cellar at a temp yeast tends of tire of very quickly, I can alert by transferring the casks down there. It was extremely difficult to persuade the Batham's yeast to go much further, and when I formulated my 'Magistrate' recipe, based upon Oakham's White Dwarf, residual sweetness was the last thing I wanted. I find in the main that most dried yeasts will go down to zero if you let them and that worked fine for my replication, attenuating at around 1004 and mashing at a slightly lower temperature to produce more maltose than dextrins. I mash higher for the milds and stouts and attenuate where possible at a higher gravity. At our erstwhile local micro, the Waen brewery, Sue, the brewster, always used Nottingham, as did a nice chap called Ben in Radnor. Our other local brewery uses heavens knows what, but their beers, although popular with pubgoers, have a 'common demoninator' flavour which makes me suspect partigyling. My Magistrate pale ale is very hoppy and maybe would be more so if what you say about Notts yeast is a fair comment, but I've been breweing it for over 15 years and in its ealry days was flitting between here and the midlands therefore it's been brewed using Batham's wet, and Notts. Also SO4 albeit rarely. We are not served at all round here by any home brew shops, so most times it's down to what I can get.

 

[user 43495]

And with the smoking ban hard to get the *** ash late addition.

Or the customers, judging by the way the pub trade has crashed since the ban came in.

 

[user 43495]

There's a good selection of mild recipes in the GW book. Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby is in my brew-queue and will done early next year with a few modifications from the Wheeler recipe. I can sometimes get it on draught when I'm in Nottingham. It's a bit of a legendary pint.

All you need is to decide what strength you want and use the amount of malt required. Then decide on the roast barley/black malt amounts which suit you and off you go. I usually aim at 3.8-4% for a mild and use 5-7 oz of roast barley and slightly less of black malt per 5 gallons.

 

[Cwrw666]

Historic beers were. (strong)

A lot were, yes, but there were also a lot of quite weak ones for through the day consumption. Breakfast etc.

 

[marshbrewer]

In the days when that recipe was formulated, mild just meant fresh porter.

If I might be allowed to put my pedantic hat on for a moment, as I understood it, historically, the term mild, meaning not stale or aged, wasn't applied to porter exclusively, but to any ale that was destined to be drank without ageing. Indeed, many of the brew logs show X ales being light in colour, being just made up of pale ale malt, invert and sometimes adjuncts (rice / maize).

I'm not sure the Sarah Hughes ruby mild is a Victorian mild Porter, as it appears to have originated in the 1920's, by which time Mild had evolved into a style in its own right, perhaps?

All interesting stuff.

 

[user 43495]

If I might be allowed to put my pedantic hat on for a moment, as I understood it, historically, the term mild, meaning not stale or aged, wasn't applied to porter exclusively, but to any ale that was destined to be drank without ageing. Indeed, many of the brew logs show X ales being light in colour, being just made up of pale ale malt, invert and sometimes adjuncts (rice / maize).

I'm not sure the Sarah Hughes ruby mild is a Victorian mild Porter, as it appears to have originated in the 1920's, by which time Mild had evolved into a style in its own right, perhaps?

All interesting stuff.

Well, the brewery say it's an old Victorian recipe but doubtless it's been altered over time. I recall back in the 1990s Whitbread's claimed to be reviving their original London Porter to celebrate so many years of brewing. I had just made the very same porter myself from the DPBC book and thought to myself, "They'll never get away with it" because that astringent style would challenge most modern palates. Indeed when Waen produced ther Fuggle Hop, which I thought was superb, being reminiscent of the porter style, she couldn't sell it. Most drinkers returned it to the bar saying is was "off". Harvey's still do their bottled version of a Double Imperial stout, again historically meaning a stronger porter, and it does have a hint of that sourness. I understand Guinness FES is still blended with 5% stale. Their vin ordinaire is, in my view, not a patch on even what I remember it being. They are in a commercial market of course and that mean maximising sales. It's why so many foods are also bland. That's one of many reasons I brew my own, and to my own recipes. I can make them taste as I want them to, not (as Dave Line once said) as a brewery accountant deems I should like them. I did make the DPBC Victorian porter back in the early 1990s and it did taste (then) very much like the SHRM. The Beacon Hotel was a mere hop skip and jump from me in those days so I could easily get to drink it! As you say, interesting stuff! Thanks for the reply.

 

[user 43495]

A lot were, yes, but there were also a lot of quite weak ones for through the day consumption. Breakfast etc.

Beers for beer drinkers were certainly strong, but the table beer you refer to was the third mashing (in the pre sparging days) produced for entire families to consume largely because the water was not only poor but frequently lethal.

 

[An Ankoù]

Can anyone post some links here to mild malt specifications and suppliers? Somewhere down the road I would like to brew a mild, but I would like to compare malts first.

I use Crisp's Vienna- it's English spring Barley with a colour 5.5-10 ebc, Fawcett's Mild claims an ebc of 7 , while other mild malts have simply claimed 10 ebc. if I couldn't get Crisp's, I'd be very inclined to have a go with Château Pale Ale Malt. It's darker than their Vienna and much darker than an English Pale Ale malt. Here's the spec. You might want to compare it with English Mild Ale malts' specs. I might give it a try anyway, as I've got some somewhere. It gets it's colour by being kilned for longer at <100C while English Mild malt is kilned at a higher temperature so it's not exactly a like for like substitute.
https://www.castlemalting.com/Castl...0&CropYear=2020&Language=English&FileType=PDF

 

[EsterBanana]

Hello, second post, my first was just an entry to a giveaway, but this is my first post talking about anything beer related and I just wanted to say thanks for the link to the book, I ordered a copy, it turned up today and I am enjoying it very much already :hat:

I haven't brewed any mild, but I would like to. I remember enjoying many pints of it in my younger days before the big hop beers got quite so big and I haven't seen it for a while, which is a shame as it's a good style of beer. I will report back in due course.

 

[glynb]

I make a whitbread dark mild clone regularly. Reminds me of the times I used to go to my local for a few in the 80's

 

[Rodcx500z]

I make a whitbread dark mild clone regularly. Reminds me of the times I used to go to my local for a few in the 80's

Hi Glyn are you talking Chesters dark mild, if so have you a recipe you could post if you don't mind

 

[Justin Dean]

I brew mild more than any other style.

 

[Ozzy]

Is there an easy mild to brew using extract,made an all in 1 kit and it was nice,and my missus really liked it......
So if I can find an fail safe extract brew for a beginner,that would be great!
Any suggestions?

 

[Justin Dean]

I make a short and shoddy mild 30 min mash 30 min boil l which is lovely. It is all grain bit could easily substitute extract for base malt. Google and you will find it mate

 

[user 43495]

Is there an easy mild to brew using extract,made an all in 1 kit and it was nice,and my missus really liked it......
So if I can find an fail safe extract brew for a beginner,that would be great!
Any suggestions?

I don't know but guess it's unlikely. Nobody, especially those in the trade, goes to trouble simply for the sake of it. It depends on what you can be satisfied with. It reminds me of the 1980s at the height of the home organ retail adventures. Salesmen would try their best to convince you that you could play in six easy lessons. They were selling a slice of a dream.

 

[Ozzy]

Well failing that,I'd be happy with a extract recipe that's not too taxing for a newer brewer. That tastes good.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Here’s a recipe I just created
Mild 3.8% ABV
21 litres
1500g LME Dark
1000g DME Amber
steeping grains for 30 minutes at 66C
100g Chocolate malt
100g Dark Crystal 145L
hops
35g EKG boiled for 30 minutes to make hop tea.
yeast
Nottingham style like CML Midland or Gervin

 

[Ozzy]

Here’s a recipe I just created
Mild 3.8% ABV
21 litres
1500g LME Dark
1000g DME Amber
steeping grains for 30 minutes at 66C
100g Chocolate malt
100g Dark Crystal 145L
hops
35g EKG boiled for 30 minutes to make hop tea.
yeast
Nottingham style like CML Midland or Gervin

Thank you,I've taken a photo of the recipe,I've a extract Irish red ale on its way. Want to get a few extract recipes done before tackling my all grain kit.
Really appreciate the advice.