Mild Ale: Anything But Lifeless

Mild needs an aggressive public relations campaign, an image consultant, maybe even a personal trainer. Otherwise, one of the world’s most misunderstood beer styles will never shed its reputation for mediocrity. Robust, virile, full of character—these are the virtues we admire in our favorite beers.

Mild? Just take a look at some of the lifeless adjectives the style mavens use to describe our hero: “moderate,” “medium,” “ordinary” and, perhaps the worst, “session”—as if one might enjoy this ale only under the wearisome circumstances we usually associate with time spent on a psychiatrist’s couch.

Oh, yes, you can drink a Mild all night. Big deal. Here’s what else you can do all night: snore. See how easy it is to shrug off poor Mild? You might as well call it “bland” and stack it on the shelf next to Wonder Bread.

In fact, as anyone with an appreciation for the sublime can testify, a well-brewed Mild is anything but lifeless. Served from a cask, it fills the mouth with light wisps of malty goodness, ranging from delicate caramel to toasted bread. Each quaff of Mild is as refreshing as the last, never bitter, always low enough in alcohol (under 4-percent ABV) to maintain a passably sober equilibrium.

Curiously, Mild’s name originally had nothing to do with its buzz capacity. It got its name to distinguish it from aged beer, like Porter. “It meant that the drink was still young and hadn’t acquired the tarter, sourer characteristics that aged beers developed,” said author Martyn Cornell, who has written extensively about British beer styles.

But mild mannered? Not at all. In the early 19th century, it wouldn’t be unusual to find a Mild clocking in at 7- or 8-percent alcohol by volume, Cornell said.

Naturally, all beer evolves. Due to grain shortages during World War I, British tax laws conspired to preserve barley, which reduced the original gravity, and thus, the alcohol. Its popularity weakened as tastes changed. “Mild was what you drank in the rougher public bar,” Cornell said. “Bitter was in the more up-market saloon bar.” By the 1960s, young drinkers turned their backs on it as their father’s beer, and Mild virtually disappeared.

Today, only a handful of traditional cask-beer brewers still make it in England. A few American brewers have taken a stab at it, too. Last year, one of them—Yards Brewing, of Philadelphia—released a new British-style Dark Mild in bottles and on draft. I asked founder and brewmaster Tom Kehoe what he was shooting for in the new beer.

“I always go back to Batemans XB, which is one of my absolute favorite beers,” said Kehoe. “It’s just a style that has a really nice malt character. It just rolls down your throat.”

His beer is smooth and malty and, yeah, you can pound it all night. But can Mild finally shed its mild image? Yards sounds like they hired that personal trainer. Its new Mild is called “Brawler,” a “Pugilist-style Ale.”

MILD
Aroma: Moderate malt, nuttiness or caramel
Flavor: Delicate but complex malt flavors, including fruit, caramel, toffee, chocolate and molasses
IBU: 10–25
ABV: 2.8–4 percent
Examples: Moorhouse Black Cat, Gale’s Festival Mild, Theakston Traditional Mild, Yards Brawler, Coopers Dark Ale, Original Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild. ■