|
|
Step back into the Dark Ages in May
It's that time of year again, the time to get out those dark glasses and fill them with that delicious dark beer style - CASK CONDITIONED MILD. After a successful Independents Ale Trail last year, the 2008 Walsall Ale Trail will Step Back into the Dark Ages with a Mild Trail to be held throughout May. Cask Mild is the red squirrel of the beer world, overwhelmed by the grey nitrokeg imitation squirrels. Mild is vastly underrated as a cask beer, with too few pubs giving it the support it deserves and putting it in its rightful place, on a handpull on the bar alongside other beer styles. It was once the most popular beer style in the country, drunk in large quantities by thirsty manual workers from the mines and blast furnaces to replace lost body fluids. However, as these industries disappeared the beer lost its market. It is the ideal session beer, full of subtle flavours to slake your thirst, but is under threat of disappearing into
oblivion due to a lack of promotion by brewers, pub companies and licensees. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide lists nearly 200 cask Milds brewed regularly or seasonally, often during May to coincide with CAMRA's annual Mild promotion. While many large regional and family owned brewers offer a cask Mild most of them are produced in relatively small quantities by the micro
breweries, so they can be hard to find but the search is well worth while.
Black Country stronghold
The Black Country fares better than many areas of the UK and most West Midlands brewers offer a real Mild, There are fine examples from Highgate Brewery in Walsall, (Dark Mild, 3·6% ABV and M&B Mild, 3·2%), Beowulf Brewery in Brownhills (Dark Raven, 4·5%), Marston’s
(nay, Banks’s surely! Original, 3·5%, and hopefully Hanson’s Mild, 3·3% as a seasonal brew for May if they keep their promise). Bathams of Brierley Hill, (Mild Ale, 3·5%), Black Country Ales from Lower Gornal (Pig on the Wall, 4·3%), Holden’s of Woodsetton (Black Country
Mild, 3·7%), Olde Swan in Netherton (Dark Swan, 4·2%, and also Pardoe’s Original, 3·5% which is considered to be a rare example of a light Mild) and the exception with regard to strength, Sarah Hughes (Dark Ruby, 6·0%) from Sedgley. A number of Staffordshire breweries also offer cask Mild including Slater's Brewery in Stafford, Titanic Brewery in Stoke and
Enville Brewery, in Enville. Also the current Champion Beer of Britain is Hobson's
Mild, 3·2%, from Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire.
Make May a Mild month
This is your chance to support CAMRA’s annual national campaign to promote this endangered beer style. Twelve pubs around the branch area will be carefully selected to take your tastebuds on a discovery trail of this classic English beer style. The final list of pubs to be included in the Mild Trail was still to be decided an Kils ‘n’ Kins went to print so keep an eye on the local press or visit the Walsall CAMRA web-site toward the end of April for full details. Meanwhile Walsall Beer Festival will of course have several examples from around the country to whet your appetite.
|
|