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

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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?)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Back
Top