Dark English Mild

DARK ENGLISH MILD


 Not a lot is said about the Dark English Mild Ale anymore. It's simply not all that popular. It used to be. In England, and other parts of the UK as well, the Mild was a wildly popular beer for hundreds of years. 

Believed to have been first brewed in the 17 century, the Mild spread throughout the isles as a drinkable, low octane beer that didn't have to be aged for very long before enjoying. It was called a young beer or fresh beer because of it's relative youth compared to the heavier beers of the day. At one point, almost every tavern or beer hall in the UK featured a Mild of some kind. 

Back in those days, beer styles were less rigidly regulated as they are today. A Mild was more about the impact of the beer, less about its coloration or hop content. A Mild could be dark, like the one we are making today, or golden, like a lightly hopped Bitter.



Milds are malt forward, leaving the light hoppy beers to the Bitter world. Caramel and chocolate malts lead to a sweet brownish beer that is easily drinkable due to it's big flavor and low gravity. These low gravity beers were essential in the old days due to the lack of trust people had in drinking water. The brewing process involves boiling, which kills any harmful bacteria in the water supply, a water supply that was used for everything from industrial purposes to storing dead bodies before burial. Because of all the detrimental additions to water, it was considered to be less healthy than low alcohol beer. In fact, water was so low on the preferred beverage power rankings, there was more beer than fresh water on the Mayflower.

Milds eventually lost market share to Bitters, and the hoppier beer took over. Pubs found them just as easy to make and more appealing to those who wanted a crisper, less malty beverage with similar alcohol content. These days, Milds are very rare, with a few craft breweries keeping the beer alive with occasional brews of the now esoteric style. The last bastion of real Milds lies in the coal mining towns in Wales, where miners require something with a little more body to get them through another day inside a mountain. 



OUR RECIPE

7 lbs 2-Row Pale Ale Malt
1/2 lb 80L Caramel Malt
1/4 lb Chocolate Malt

2 oz Fuggles Hops

S-04 Dry English Ale Yeast

1 tsp Irish Moss


Malts We Use

2-Row Pale Ale Malt: A basic base malt, this won’t impart too much color and very little flavor. It is a pretty clean, crisp malt that works well with specialty grains and pretty much any style of beer. American varieties are generally less starchy and lighter than English breeds.

80L Caramel Malt: This specialty malt will contribute not only a fair amount of sweetness, but also a beautiful color that makes this beer stand out from its cousins.80 is in the higher range of Caramel malt, which is bolder in flavor and color than the lighter versions with lower numbers.

Hops We Use

Fuggle: A versatile and traditional English hop variety, Fuggle was introduced in the 19th century and has been a staple of British beers ever since. Usually an aromatic hop, it can be used at any point in the brewing process. In this case, its low Alpha Acid levels make it a perfect bittering hop for low IBU Porter beers.

Yeast We Used

SafAle S-04: A basic English dry yeast strain that works well across all styles but really thrives in malty and dark ales. Top fermenting and reliable, S-04 dry yeast can handle most low to medium ABV beers, it ferments quickly and creates a tight sediment base, increasing the clarity of lighter English ales while still retaining the hearty characteristics of pub beer.

Adjuncts We Used

Irish Moss: We use Irish Moss as a clarifying agent. These negatively charged seaweed particles attract proteins and other free radicals in your boil kettle and drag them to the bottom once cooled, thereby removing haze from your final product. Whirlfloc tablets are another option for this process. Regardless of your preferred methods of clarity, it is important that beers of this style are clear. Lagering can do this as well, but most home brewers don't have that capability, so adding Irish Moss (or something similar) can work wonders for cleaning up the beer.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Russian Imperial Stout

Image
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STOUT   The Imperial Stout, over the last few years, has become one of the most popular styles in America. Almost every craft brewery, regardless of size, seems to have at least one on their roster. Imperial Stouts are also some of the biggest and baddest beers available, with alcohol content ranging into double figures. This beer is always complex, bold, and malleable. Imperial Stouts have so much going on that they really allow the brewer to get creative with adjuncts and aging options. Many times these are the base beers for new school pastry and coffee stouts, as well as countless bourbon barrel aged stouts.  Originally brewed in the 18th century by Thrale's Anchor Brewery in London, England, it was famously made to export to Catherine the Great of Russia as another boozy option in the cold Russian Winters. The "Imperial" moniker was bestowed upon the style after it was given a royal warrant of trade by the Russian government. Since then, the Imperial...
Read more

Ginger Pale Ale

Image
Ginger Pale Ale   Around these parts we don't drink all that much soda (or pop, or cola, or whatever you call it where you're from), but the one thing that we do enjoy is the occasional ginger ale. Effervescent and refreshing, the spicy ginger dances on the palate in ways that evoke colorful and exotic destinations. Ginger is almost always the star of whatever show it happens to be in, regardless of food or beverage. So we decided to us it in a beer. Our Ginger Pale Ale is less of a ginger beer style beverage, and more of a lighter beer infused with fresh ginger. We wanted to make a warm weather beverage as interesting as the fizzy NA drink that we enjoy so much. We use copious amounts of fresh ginger, peeled and ground up in a food processor, to give fresh spice and flavor to a very generic beer, transforming it into an all-star drink.  The ginger root has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. In India, Ayurvedic medicine has implemented ginger in several w...
Read more

Summer Ale

Image
SUMMER ALE  It's that time of year again, the time of year where the beer you drink has a direct effect on the rest of your day. When the weather warms up, you want something cold and refreshing, something that you can feel okay about pounding down at the beach, or at a picnic. This probably isn't that beer. This Summer Ale isn't quite as crisp and crushable as many others, but it has elements that most beers these days don't. This Summer Ale is more of a night time beer than a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. It is slightly heavier and far more aromatic than most others, and that is due to the inclusion of chamomile during secondary fermentation.  Chamomile is renowned for its floral qualities and pleasant flavor. Used as a tea, the aroma of chamomile has a soothing property to some and it is often used by herbalists as a sleep aid. It should be noted that there has not been sufficient evidence for any medicinal uses for chamomile, however preliminary research is being done t...
Read more