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

[Les Howarth]

Hi Les, Yes I agree the modern mild style can often be pushed out for drinking after just 10 days. Many years ago I and some friends organised a home brew beer festival in my garden. It was incredibly hot as many summers were back in the 1990s and one of the beers failed. Hurriedly I decided to do another modern mild with just 10 days to go and it worked a treat. These days i have a very old house with a cellar which is perfect. I used to double up but now have a brew length of 10 galls so that works well for me. Have you tried using Northern Brewer hops in your milds/stouts? It seems to be a largely ignored hop these days which i think is a great shame. Paul

Yes, I use Northern Brewer in a number of recipes. I think it gives a pleasant bite to the bitterness.

 

[RichK]

With May rapidly approaching, I've got one on now.

(Very) Loosely based on Hobson's "The Champion" so 3kg pale, 250g Crystal 240, 250g Low Colour Chocolate, 125g Flaked Barley Mash @67C, 20g Challenger (45 min) 20g Progress (10 min) 10g Progress (FO) (Original is Goldings & Fuggles). CML Midland OG 1033

 

[An Ankoù]

My very favourite mild is the result of a cockup. I'll post the recipe when I'm back at Mission Control, but the cockup concerned the hops. I was trying a new recipe and had intended to use admiral, but wasn't happy about the smell of half-used pack so I threw them away and reached for another bittering hop. Somehow, I got hold of Harlequin and bittered with that. It's amazing, I would never have imagined that harlequin would go with the light roast flavours and that it would still have a significant presence without any late additions. In fact I've quite abandoned my earlier recipe, which I must resurrect and remind myself what it tasted like.

 

[An Ankoù]

My very favourite mild is the result of a cockup. I'll post the recipe when I'm back at Mission Control, but the cockup concerned the hops. I was trying a new recipe and had intended to use admiral, but wasn't happy about the smell of half-used pack so I threw them away and reached for another bittering hop. Somehow, I got hold of Harlequin and bittered with that. It's amazing, I would never have imagined that harlequin would go with the light roast flavours and that it would still have a significant presence without any late additions. In fact I've quite abandoned my earlier recipe, which I must resurrect and remind myself what it tasted like.

As threatened, here's the recipe:
Sort out your own hop quantities as I make a 20 litre batch from a 15 litre brew. This came out at OG 1041.
20 Litres : OG 1040 : Target FG 1010 (mine always drops lower) : 22 IBU's calculate at 25% utilisation.
Adjust water to 100 ppm CaCO3 equivalent. I add a tsp each of CaSO4 and CaCl2 as my water is very calcium deficient (around 4ppm)
Mild Malt (Crisp's Vienna is good) 2.56 Kg (76%)
Simpson's Dble roasted or Special B or Special X 320 g (9.5%)
Flaked Wheat 320 g (9.5%)
Chocolate Malt 160g (5%)
Long mash at 64.5C
FWH Harlequin hops at 9.1% alpha acid 24g
70 minute boil
protofloc last 10 mins
Pitch with Wyeast 1728 Scottish.
Prime 75 cl bottles with 6g Daddy's cassonade (demerara sugar?)

 

[Erik The Anglophile]

I have a mild planned to be brewed soon, Inspired by Ron's 1952 lees best mild recipe.
20L (in fermenter, 21L post boil) batch, 83% efficiency.

I use Simpsons malts
Vienna as base
6% Crystal Light
3% Brown Malt
3% Chocolate
2% Black.
8% invert 3, maybe a bit of caramel colour if it does not get dark enough.

90 min boil, challenger as bittering @60 min, EKG 15g @20min, EKG 10g dry hop at pitching time.
OG 1.036 20 IBU
Mash at 70c for 60 min and fermented with a MJ m42/Brewly English mix.
Gonna aim for %75% AA and about 3.5% abv.

 

[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.

I'm familiar with that mild and that's why i stipulated 'modern mild' because the Beacon version is more of the old mild style when mild simply meant not soured. In other words a fresh porter.

 

[user 43495]

A brewing colleague taught me to love mild and I've never looked back. Haven't time to read the 7 pages of this thread so I'm not sure what "modern" mild is unless it's the dark (usually) low-hopped and relatively low abv that was well-known among the flat-capped brigade of the middle of the last century. I don't use sugar or adjuncts and, a good mild is easy to make and the most refreshing of beers. It can even be served cold (not chilled). I've always got a mild in stock these days.

Yes, it's the low abv lightly hopped beer as opposed to the historic unsoured porter of olden times.