Mild But Not Meek

by Brad McMahon

After our trip to California last month, it's time to head back to the UK. This time we head up the M1 (and a left on the M6) through to the area known as the Midlands. It's time to order a pint or two of mild.

A mild is a great beer for homebrewers to try. Milds are rarely available for consumption by Australian drinkers. No Australian breweries produce a mild and it is even hard to find in the UK. I have seen some milds imported by a specialist beer importer in years past but have not seen one here for quite some time.

The style is easy to brew and has the added advantage that any craft brewer regardless of skill level can do it.

What is a Mild?

The beer that is commonly known as "mild" is a low alcohol but full flavoured English dark ale. Low alcohol pale ales can technically be called milds but those beers are rarely titled that today.

It is lightly hopped, malty and smooth. Milds were designed to be consumed in large amounts without knocking the drinker out; the beer was popular amongst the working class, particularly amongst those who worked in strenuous jobs.

Historical Perspective

The beer currently called mild is radically different to the beer called mild in the eighteenth century, and has gone through a couple of transformations before coming the beer of today.

In eighteenth century England, people's taste in beer was different from today. Smoked beers were standard as most malt (called brown malt) was malted over wood fires rather that the coal fires that were starting to be used for the new style of brewing malt called pale malt.
Most beers were what we now call high alcohol, around eight to nine percent, and special beers often went higher. Breweries often brewed batches for improvement over time, often one or two years.
Stored in large oak vats, these beers picked up an acetic infection from wild yeasts in the vats.

The brewers called these sour beers "Stale". These beers were expensive and often too sour to drink straight. To make them palatable and affordable, they were mixed with fresh batches of ale that had not had time to pick up infections from the wild yeasts. These fresh batches were called Mild because of their taste.

This method of brewing has largely died out but there are a few examples still left. Belgian brewers are famous for their soured beers, while Guinness still blend a small proportion of soured beer in their Foreign Extra Stout. The last remaining brewery in the UK that still uses Stale Beer, is Greene King in their Westgate brewery in Suffolk. They make a 12% ale called Old 5X, which is not for sale separately, staled for two years that they mix in with a few of their brands.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the mild was often a more lightly hopped version of the brewery's standard bitter. Throughout the twentieth century the alcoholic content of English beers dropped considerably, mostly due to the economic constraints caused by two world wars. By the end of the Second World War, milds were mostly low alcohol drinks as well as being lightly hopped. This suited the palates of workers, particularly in the Welsh and Midland mining regions, who needed a refreshing low alcohol sweet drink to re-invigorate after long hours in the pits. Milds were the most popular beer in Britain until the economic boom of the Fifties when the beer was shunned because of its working class image.

Since then, the mild has virtually disappeared from the brewing scene, except in areas of the Midlands. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) organisation has been very active in trying to resurrect this style with some success. The stigma of milds being a working class old man's drink still remains, and some brewers that sell milds often report increased sales when removing the title "Mild" from their beer's name.

Formulating Your Own Mild

Beers that have starting gravities of between 1.030 and 1.035 are generally determined to be milds. Hopping is usually quite light, between 10 and 20 IBU's.

However, there are not many consensuses amongst commercial brewers as to what is in milds.
Although most use crystal malt, the choice of darker grains is more diverse. It seems equally divided as to whether to use roast barley or chocolate malt and whether to use black malt or not. Many breweries use some sugar and some use a small proportion of wheat or maize in their recipes.

So, what does this mean for you? Use what you like for grains, as long as your beer comes out dark brown or black! Use a pale grain or extract for a base and add either chocolate or roast and top it off with a bit of black malt. Perhaps instead of chocolate or roast, try crystal and some black. Try any combination that you think will sound good to you. I would stay away from adding sugar, I cannot see the advantage of doing so at such low gravities. Try and keep your final gravity as high as you can, adding sugar will just lower it too much, in my opinion.

The Recipes

References

Books:

Daniels, R., Designing Great Beers, Brewers Publications, Boulder, 1996.
Wheeler, G. Home Brewing: The CAMRA Guide, Camra Books, St Albans, 1993.
Wheeler, G & Protz, R., Brew Your Own British Real Ale, CAMRA/Storey, St. Albans, 1998.
Korzonas, A., Homebrewing Volume I, Sheaf & Vine, Bridgeview IL, 1997
Protz, R., The Ale Trail, Eric Dobby Publishing, Orpington, Kent, 1995.

Journals:
What's Brewing, May 2001, CAMRA, St Albans.