Every May, CAMRA branches across the country celebrate ‘Mild May’, an initiative to celebrate and highlight the traditional beer style ‘Mild’, which was, until recently, under threat of extinction due to a drop in popularity.
To help revive the Mild beer style, Liverpool & Districts CAMRA branch encourages local pubs to have at least one Mild on their handpumps during the month of May.
If your pub is supporting ‘Mild May’ then let us know by Emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via Twitter/Social media. If you include @LiverpoolCAMRA in tweets then this will help us get the notification.
We, also, may be able to organise a pub walk to pubs that embrace and support this beer style.
The Mild style is highly diverse and can vary in colour from light amber to dark brown and black.
‘Mild’ was originally used to designate any beer which was young, fresh or unaged and did not refer to a specific style of beer. Thus, there was Mild Ale but also Mild Porter and even Mild Bitter Beer.
Mild is one of the most traditional beer styles which developed in the late 18th and 19th centuries as drinkers started to demand a slightly sweeter and less aggressively hopped beer than Porter. It also grew to meet the demands of a new class of industrial labourers. It became particularly popular in the Midlands, a heavily industrialized area of England. There it was drunk by miners and factory workers looking to quench their thirst after a hard day’s labour - people who were also looking for a value beer.
Early Milds were much stronger than modern versions, with the strength ranging from around 5.5% to 7% abv, modern milds tend to fall into the 3% to 3.5% category.
In the 19th century a typical brewery produced three or four mild ales, usually designated by a number of ‘X marks’, the weakest being X, the strongest XXXX.
The draconian measures applied to the brewing industry during the First World War had a particularly dramatic effect upon Mild. As the biggest-selling beer, it suffered the largest cut in gravity when breweries had to limit the average OG of their beer to 1.030.
Then, in the 1950s, the popularity of mild began to slip. Britain’s industrial base declined and, with it, the demand for this sweet, sustaining, low alcohol beer. Mild’s reputation was not helped by the publicans (however few) who dumped drip tray waste and cellar waste, known in the industry as ‘slops,’ back into the beer.
By the 1970s fewer and fewer breweries were producing mild and those that were tended to drop ‘mild’ from the names of those beers. Soon, mild became something that ‘Old Men’ drank and ‘beer’ became synonymous with fizzy golden liquid.
Mild stayed out of favour until the 1990s. By then the practice of putting the slops back into the beer had stopped.
Mild is enjoying a revival in today’s real ale market and brewers are producing several variations in both strength and flavour.
Nowadays most Milds are dark brown in colour, due to the use of well-roasted malts or roasted barley. When tasting look for a rich malty aroma and flavour, with hints of dark fruit, chocolate, coffee and caramel, with a gentle underpinning of hop bitterness
What they do all have in common though, is the flavour, malty sweetness with a very low (mild) level of hop bitterness. All have subtle differences depending on the choice of malts used in the brewing process. Some are smooth and creamy, others are nuttier and coffee-like due to the use of a higher roasted malt.
So, what are you waiting for - badger your local publican to stock some Mild for May, there are lots of breweries out there who will be only too happy to supply their sweet, smooth and creamy, coffee flavoured nectar. Don’t forget to tell us about it.
Graham Murray, March 2020.
Note from the Editor. We know two pubs in Liverpool that permanently have on a mild. The Dispensary Fernandez Malt Shovel Mild, and The Lion Tavern, Rock the Boat Lion Mild (Sittin’ on the Dock).
Please let us know of other pubs that have on a permanent mild.
