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10-10-2015, 08:09
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With draught Mild out of the way we can move on to bottled Dark Mild, or Brown Ale as it was usually called.

Though I should be careful about saying that. Not every beer in the tables below is a bottled Mild. Or something similar. There are some quite different stylistically. But we’ll get onto that later.

Starting with the Which? samples seems the logical place to start. They aren’t a very alcoholic bunch. Far from it. Only a couple are over 3% ABV and the average is below it. The strongest of the bunch, Double Maxim, wasn’t even classed as a Brown Ale but was lumped with the bottled Pale Ales. Of the ones they considered Brown Ales, only the Carlisle State Management example scrapes past 1040º.

The gravities are mostly in the low 1030’s, much like draught Mild. But the rate of attenuation is much lower, averaging 65% compared to almost 75%. That’s quite a difference considering they’re very similar, or in some cases actually the same, beer. That was certainly the case of Whitbread’s Forest Brown which was the same beer as Best Ale. Only one has attenuation over 70% and that’s the one beer that’s different from the others: Double Maxim.

It looks as if drinkers liked their Brown Ales sweet. Even sweeter than Mild. This is borne out by the bitterness levels, which average to one point lower than Mild. The combination of light hopping and high FG must have left them drinking pretty sweet and quite full for the gravity.

Looking at value for money, Double Maxim is a clear winner. It’s only a little more expensive for its ABV than draught Mild. Surprisingly, Brown Ale is on average worse value than bottled Light Ale and bottled Pale Ale, which both came to about 6.5. I can’t understand why that should be.

Moving on to the Gravity Book examples, you can see that they are a more diverse bunch. The majority are still of the bottled Mild type, but there are also some that are quite different. There’s a stronger type consisting of Bass, Newcastle Brown and Federation. The latter two are intended to be similar, I’m sure. And the Bass one probably filled a similar niche. The all have reasonable to high attenuation.

The real outlier is Websters Old Brown, which you may recall began life as a Coronation Ale. Strong, dark and heavy. I wouldn’t mind a pint of that now. I’d guess that it was parti-gyled with their Sam Brown Ale.

There’s a similar variation in colour, ranging from not really brown at all (Brickwood) to near black (Strong). Though the average is typical in the Dark Mild country of 80 to 90.

Federation comes out as best value for money. Not really much of a shock. Clubs breweries kept prices low. And their Brown Ale is also quite well attenuated, which helps. It even manages to be better value than one of the draught Milds. At the other end of the scale is Atkinson’s Brown Ale, which costs double per 1% ABV.



Brown Ale in 1960


Brewer
Beer
Price per pint d
OG
FG
ABV
App. Atten-uation
Index of Hop Bitter
price per % ABV


Ansells
Nut Brown Ale
17
1032.9
1010.5
2.90
68.09%
20
5.87


Ushers
Brown Ale
18
1032.3
1010.7
2.80
67.03%
22
6.43


Friary Meux
Brown Ale
20
1030.2
1011.6
2.40
61.59%
19
8.33


Tolly Cobblold
Country Brown Ale
20
1031.5
1012.2
2.50
61.43%
23
8.01


Strong
Rumsey Brown
20
1032.1
1009.7
2.90
69.78%
20
6.90


Watney
Brown Ale
20
1032.1
1011.2
2.70
65.11%
16
7.40


Greene King
Burton Ale
20
1033.4
1011.7
2.80
64.97%
16
7.13


Truman
Trubrown Brown Ale
20
1034.7
1013.8
2.70
60.23%
27
7.42


Truman
Trubrown Brown Ale
20
1035.2
1015.1
2.60
57.24%
25
7.70


Simonds
Berry Brown Ale
20
1035.1
1015.7
2.50
55.27%
20
8.00


Carlisle State Management
Nut Brown Ale
20
1040.6
1012.8
3.60
68.60%
20
5.55


Fremlins
Double Elephant Brown Ale
21
1033.4
1011
2.90
67.07%
17
7.25


Courage & Barclay
'Doctor' Brown Ale
21
1034.7
1013
2.80
62.54%
26
7.49


Whitbread
Forest Brown
21
1035.5
1012.3
3.00
65.35%
28
7.00


Georges
Brown Ale
22
1035.1
1011.9
3.00
66.10%
20
7.34


Vaux
Double Maxim
24
1047.4
1009.8
4.90
79.43%
40
4.90


Average

20.3
1034.8
1012.0
2.94
64.99%
22.4
7.05


Source:


Which Beer Report, 1960, pages 171 - 173.






Brown Ale 1959 - 1961


Brewer
Beer
Price per pint d
OG
FG
ABV
App. Atten-uation
colour
price per % ABV


Ansell
Bruno Sweet Brown Ale
23
1034.4
1013.6
2.68
60.47%
90
8.57


Atkinson's
Brown Ale
26
1037
1016.5
2.64
55.41%
95
9.85


Bass
Brown Ale
36
1052.9
1015.6
4.84
70.51%
105
7.44


Brickwoods
Brown Ale
24
1041.1
1013.9
3.52
66.18%
19
6.82


Hammonds
Brown Jack Ale
20
1034.7
1009.3
3.18
73.20%
70
6.30


Newcastle Breweries
Brown Ale
32
1052.2
1012.1
5.22
76.82%
50
6.13


Tennant Bros.
Lion Brown Ale
23
1035.1
1009.2
3.24
73.79%
75
7.10


Tomson & Wotton
Tom Brown Ale

1033.5
1014
2.51
58.21%
110



Websters
Old Brown
46.5
1071.4
1023.1
6.27
67.65%
110
7.42


Websters
Sam Brown Ale
18
1036.8
1011.1
3.33
69.84%
95
5.41


Hancock, Cardiff
Nut Brown

1033







Northern Clubs Federation
Federation Brown Ale
23
1051.4
1010.4
5.13
79.77%
70
4.49


Newcastle Breweries
Brown Ale
30
1051.4
1008.2
5.40
84.05%
50
5.56


Strong
Rumsey Brown
21
1032.3
1010
2.79
69.04%
140
7.53


Truman
Keg Brown
18
1033.5
1007
3.44
79.10%
90
5.23


Whitbread
Forest Brown

1033.0
1008.0
3.31
75.76%
100



Average

25.4
1041.5
1012.1
3.83
70.65%
84.6
6.76


Source:


Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.


Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/127.


Stout next. Where I’ll be banging one of my favourite drums very loudly again.

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