Victorian Mild!

[RiktheBrewer]

Thought I would throw this into the mix. Not sure where I got it from but had filed it away and I found it today. So, Mild Ale was a definite style in 1917 but the alcohol strength is what interests me compared to bitter.

 

[peebee]

The "Boddington's X" has been a bit of a disaster! It's not off, it tastes light but very good. The lack of bitterness (24IBU) is noticeable, but perfectly okay (must use less flavoured hops next time). The photo is a few days ago, its cleared a lot since then.

It is very easy drinking. That's the problem. It's difficult not to glug it back, and although my fist venture in to historic X-ales (Mild Ale precursor) was chosen to be fairly light on alcohol, close on 4.5% abv quickly makes your head spin!

I'm planning to step back an Era (i.e. Georgian, 1700s roughly) and give another "Ale" a try. But this one will be a reincarnation of something rather more famous ... Stitch. Even lower IBUs (about 10) but an abv of about 7-8% (a "strong brown ale"; it's the insufficiently aged "ale" version of the 100% brown malt Porter beer, or "common brown beer"). But after the "X-ale" trial I think I might need a change of plans.

 

[patto1ro]

Just polishing off a little book called AK!. It will have 50 AK recipes from 15 breweries, spanning more than 100 years. And they're all Pale Ales.

 

[peebee]

Just polishing off a little book called AK!. It will have 50 AK recipes from 15 breweries, spanning more than 100 years. And they're all Pale Ales.

That sounds like a better bet than my "suicidal" descent into "Ales". AK doesn't seem far removed from modern day bitter, whereas "Stitch" might just be one of your murderous "imperial mild Ales"? You can probably count on me grabbing a copy of "AK" ... hang-on, isn't this dropping that post into my thread a thinly veiled ploy to milk a (at least one) "cash-cow"? Don't you have to declare that? ... (Admins! Look what I've found!)

I can see now why you don't venture much into the 18th Century. Let alone the 17th (I was aiming for English Civil War). I'm still dredging through "Brown Beer" (Mini Book Series, Volume V) which is when I reached this "conclusion" and I wrote this on a different forum. You might have some agreements with the position I reach:

I'd sort of concluded from your previous inputs that my efforts needed a more "holistic" approach. My reliance on brewery records (mainly dug up by Ron and Edd) was only going to keep me going so long, and by the latter part of the "Georgian era" that tactic was failing fast. Didn't pay enough attention to history at school, but I had heard of the "Industrial Revolution" and looking that up was given the dates 1760 to 1820/40. Now there's a "coincidence"? And bumping into the backend of that, the philosophies of the "Age of Enlightenment".

Crikey, no wonder my ears were deaf to this stuff first time around. But this time I've added the magic ingredient ... beer!

It's a big step from the relative certainties of "brewery records" to snippets of stories from the past that must be processed by some possibly dodgy PeeBee conjecture. Still, I can always skip that and go straight for the views of some American "craft beer" historian; like possibly those advising the BJCP?

Excuse the (also thinly veiled) close on slanderous remarks about the BJCP. The original thread is here: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century). It's nearly all me with some handy input from "Eric".

There's a more local post here (Victorian Porter) which mainly paps on about emulating early malts (in a thread you've posted on previously).