English Style Dark Mild

Rather more crystal than I would use, but that's an observation not a criticism.
Here are a couple of recipes, each for a 6 US gallon batch.Scale according to your brew size.
Morland's Mild (modelled on a mild brewed by the same place as brewed Old Speckled Hen)
5 lb pale malt
4 ounces roast barley
12 ounces soft dark brown sugar
2 ounces Fuggles hops (full boil)

Kings and Barnes Mild Ale;
4 1/2 lb pale malt
5 oz flaked maize
3 oz crushed black malt
1 lb invert sugar
1/2 oz Goldings hops
2 ounces Fuggles hops (full boil)
Caramel for colour adjustment

Both these recipes come from their respective brewery.Neither brewery still exists !
As I normally find with actual clones of British beers they contain more hops than American interpretations.22 to 25 IBU would be the ballpark for a dark mild.
In common with established brewing practice, weaker beers are supposed to benefit from a longer boil. 90 minutes would be standard.

 

~0.5oz of Fuggles at around 15 min would lend some tobacco notes that work well in a mild, if that appeals to you.

Otherwise, looks pretty good. These beers can take quite a bit of crystal, and I think it's a good idea as it helps to give some heft. I also recommend mashing pretty high, say, 156-157.

 

I personally prefer more flavors from dark grains over crystal in my milds. I would reduce the Crystal and add more chocolate malt and maybe an ounce of roasted barley or black patent.

 

If the beer is for personal consumption, brew it any way you like. My prefence would be to reduce but not eliminate the crystal malt. I like the sweetness it brings but can find it cloying. Plus, those English base malts are flavorful; you don't want to hide them. Plus, those English crystals are flavorful; you don't need a lot to impart a little extrasomething. 12 oz in a 2.75 gallon batch is probably pushing my threshold. In contrast, my other preference is for more hops. Marquis has convinced me that hopping rates for milds specified by American guidlines are too conservative, based on historical and modern examples. Furthermore, my tastebuds have convinced me that I like hops in brownish ales. On the other hand, if brewing for a BJCP competition, you probably don't want to do more with the hops as a competition judge will be looking for minimal hops in this style.

If your plan is to keep the hops low, for me, it would become even more important to reduce the crystal malt (hops help balance sweetness).

 

Actually, it's not unknown for UK milds to be caramelised bitter! This can work very well at times;
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2150/5563 which is Landlord Bitter with caramel.

I had three pints yesterday lunchtime of Castle Rock's Black Gold which I suspect to be also a modified bitter.But if you're only brewing small volumes of mild it makes sense to divert some wort from the bitters.

Both Ram Tam and Black Gold are really good drinking despite their unconventional structure.
Edit-this route would be a good one for homebrewers only wishing to make small amounts or to use in parti-gyle.

 

Flaked maize was a commonly used adjunct in all british beers but has fallen out of favour. Fuller's used it in their brews until a few years ago.Round about 7% of the grist and it did their ESB no harm!
Also normal until recently was sugar-not the white refined stuff but Brewers' sugar available in a range from #1 to #4 which was (and is) dark and treacly.
Mild is really a sort of mongrel style! So-called traditional mild doesn't go back as far as one might think; before WW1 it contained no dark malts , was on average 6% ABV and sometimes heavily hopped.
Ron Pattinson publishes recipes for bygone brews in his blog www.barclayperkins.blogspot.com

 

Boil 2 hours. Vigorously.

 

Use flaked maize to maintain a light the body while boosting to a desired alcohol level. If you want you mild to be stronger but don't necessarily want the body or sweetness that comes with more malt, than use the maize. Corn can impart a really weak flavor, but I don't think you would pick it up in the presence of a good English malt, 8 ounces of crystal, and some chocolate malt. So mostly it is a question of what you want your alcohol and body to be like.

 

Proper brewing sugars will add flavour. No. 3 invert has a lovely dark fruit flavour that goes really well in a Mild.

 

The brewer at Belvoir Brewery who makes a pretty accurate clone of Shipstones Mild (he was once a brewer there) told me that a lot of the remarkable flavour for a beer of 3.4% ABV came from the No4 brewing sugar.Whatever, it's a luscious pint and I see it on sale that's what I go for.

 

Interesting. I've only ever seen No. 4 invert used in Porter or Stout.

Shippos was easily my faviourite of the Nottingham Milds.

 

I think he used #4 for priming , next time I see him I'll ask. Not that it's any imposition to go to the brewery

 

If you want to try Mild in London, go to the Royal Oak on Tabbard street. they always have Harvey's Mild on cask. Lovely stuff.

 

Go in May if you can. It's CAMRA's Mild in May month and there's much more around then. Half our local pubs stocked a cask mild during this year's campaign and some of them had a veritable stream one after the other.
I'm fortunate where I live to have a few country pubs which stock a cask mild and of course it's no problem finding it in cities like Nottingham but outside May you have to look carefully.

 

In that case I will take credit for brewing one such mild today. I wanted to give some color to my bitter so I added a couple ounces of a roasted malt to the grist. The malt, Briess Midnight Wheat, is mostly a color malt -- not much roasted flavor at all. But I crushed it very finely and consequently underestimated it's color contribution. It looks about like one of my homebrewed milds, but those usually have a flavor contribution of an English chocolate malt.