English Mild

Testimonials
Introduction
Recipe
Notes / Process
Pictures / Videos

Testimonials

"I have brewed two 10 gallon batches of this mild and it is excellent! If you are after a easy drinking English flavour I would look no further." - DeNomad

Introduction

Looking for an English style ale with lots of flavour but without all the alcohol? Try this English Mild. It keeps the flavour but lowers the alcohol to 3.2% (nearly half of our Extra Special Bitter), making it a beer that can be enjoyed all day. Lightly hopped, refreshing, and flavourful.

Until the 1960s Mild was the most popular beer style in England but shortly after experienced a sharp decline and was in danger of completely disappearing. In recent years the explosion of microbreweries has led to a modest renaissance and an increasing number of Milds (sometimes labelled 'Dark') are now being brewed across the world.

To help with this revival, the Campaign for Real Ale has designated May as 'Mild Month'. In the United States, a group of beer bloggers organised the first yearly American Mild Month which started in May 2015 with forty-five participating breweries across the country, including some that have used our Electric Brewery setup. (Cool!)

Crooked Run Brewing of Lessburg VA participates in American Mild Month

The recipe uses the Fuller's yeast which is available to homebrewers as Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale yeast or White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast. It produces malty beers that are slightly sweet/fruity. The yeast is also highly flocculant (likes to settle out) so the beer drops brilliantly clear without need of any clarifiers.

Brew up a batch and let us know how you like it!

English Mild

Size: 12 US gallons (post-boil @ 68F)
Mash Efficiency: 95%
Attenuation: 69.4%
Calories: 117 kcal per 12 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.035 (style range: 1.030 - 1.038)
Final Gravity: 1.011 (style range: 1.008 - 1.013)
Colour: 17.1 SRM (style range: 12 - 25)
Alcohol: 3.2% ABV (style range: 3% - 3.8%)
Bitterness: 17 IBU (style range: 10 - 25)

Mash:
10.75 lb British Maris Otter malt (2.5-4L) (85.3%)
0.8 lb British crystal malt (60L) (6.3%)
0.55 lb British crystal malt (120L) (4.4%)
0.25 lb Chocolate malt (350-500L) (2%)
0.25 lb Black (patent) malt (470-600L) (2%)

Boil:
2 oz UK East Kent Goldings hops (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min [17.2 IBU]
1 Whirlfloc tablet (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale yeast or White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast
(~299 billion cells or an equivalent starter)

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Notes / Process

Add 500mg potassium metabisulfite to 20 gallons water to remove chlorine / chloramine (if required).
Water treated with brewing salts to our Hoppy lite flavour profile: Ca=110, Mg=18, Na=16, Cl=50, SO4=100 (Basically Randy Mosher's ideal Pale Ale numbers with slightly less sulfate and a Cl:S04 ratio of 1:2. We're not making a hoppy American beer here so we go a bit easy on accentuating bitterness.). For more information on how to adjust your water, refer to our step by step Water Adjustment guide.
1.25 qt/lb mash thickness.
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Single infusion mash at 154F for 90 mins.
Raise to 168F mashout temperature and hold for 10 mins.
~90 min fly sparge with ~5.6-5.8 pH water (measured at mash temperature).
Boil for 60 minutes, adding Whirlfloc and hops per schedule. Lid on at flameout, start chilling immediately.
Cool the wort quickly to 66F (we use a one-pass convoluted counterflow chiller to quickly lock in hop flavour and aroma) and transfer to fermenter.
Aerate or oxygenate the chilled wort to a level of 8-10 ppm dissolved oxygen. For more information refer to our Aerating / Oxygenating Wort guide.
Pitch yeast and ferment at 66-68F (wort temperature). We use modified stainless fermenting buckets in wine fridges.
Ferment until approximately 5 points from final gravity and then raise the temperature to 70-72F until finished. In our case we simply turn off the fermenting fridges and allow the beer to naturally rise to room temperature. Assume fermentation is done if the gravity does not change over ~3 days.
There is no need to use finings such as unflavoured gelatin as the yeast is extremely flocculant and will drop brilliantly clear on its own.
Package as you would normally. We rack to kegs that have first been purged with CO2 and then chill to near freezing while carbonating at the same time in a 6-keg conditioning fridge. After ~1-2 weeks at serving pressure the kegs will be carbonated and ready to serve. In a hurry? Feel free to raise the CO2 pressure temporarily to 30-40 PSI to carbonate fast over a 24 period, and then turn back down to serving pressure.
Carbonate this beer to fairly low levels (the lower the better in our humble opinion, or even better, as a cask ale). If you have the means to serve it through a beer engine with no extra carbonation other than residuals left over from fermentation, do it! We think you'll really enjoy the difference. Over carbonation destroys a lot of the subtleties of this beer. Do not over carbonate. Another option that we've used (that was the original reason to make this beer) is to serve the beer on a stout faucet pushed by a nitrogen/CO2 blend, producing a nice creamy head and close to flat beer. One inexpensive way to mimic this is to use a syringe (without needle). Pour the beer as you would normally and then suck up a syringe full and force it back into the beer, hard. Repeat 2-3 times and you'll knock most of the CO2 out of solution leaving a nearly flat beer with a creamy head. Not quite the same texture, but similar to a nitro pour. We tried this for years before finally adding a real nitrogen/CO2 serving setup to our basement bar.