TA-RA A BIT – 3.4% DARK MILD
Ta-Ra a Bit is our seasonal beer for February, and it’s actually a reimagining of a beer we produced early on in my time at The Hop Shed. In May of 2023 we released Hen’s Teeth, a dark mild with a high proportion of dextrin malt to leave unfermented sugars in the beer and provide body and sweetness; a range of crystal malts for caramel and toffee notes; and roasted malt to round the flavour with rich chocolate. It was a small run but is to date one of our best-liked seasonals, so I thought it was overdue a return outing!
Mild beers have a dedicated following, particularly in the West Midlands, but until a recent resurgence spearheaded by groups such as CAMRA, it has been a style out of favour. From one of the most popular varieties in the 1930s, in some places it was very difficult to even find a mild in the latter half of the 20th century. What causes the fortunes of a style to change so drastically?
In the case of Mild, there were a couple of reasons. Traditionally, the term mild simply meant the beer was fresh as opposed to aged. While they are typically sub-4% nowadays, they could be of any strength – the reduction on ABV came as a result of rationing and increases in taxation during and between the first and second world wars. After this, as new, more interesting beer styles came out and ABVs started to increase again, Mild was simply left behind.
Another example of a beer style that underwent a significant change, but this time to its benefit (in terms of sales at least), is lager. Traditional lagers originate from Central Europe, and styles such as Pilsner can often be fairly hoppy and bitter. When some of those brewing families moved to America to set up breweries, they continued to produce lagers similar in style – until prohibition kicked in in 1920. By the time it was repealed in 1933 most breweries had switched to producing soft drinks, and when they went back to the beers they had made thirteen years ago, they found tastes had changed and many people weren’t used to anything so bitter. The brewer’s solution? Design a lager emulating the easy drinking and sweet nature of the soft drinks people were used to – and so the American Light Lager was born. While it certainly didn’t eradicate the prior forms of lager it did become not only the dominant version of that style, but of beer as a whole, even now accounting for as much as 70% of the global beer market.
So, what’s happening today? Broadly speaking, the biggest change in the UK over the last twenty years is the introduction of craft beer. I’ve discussed it in more depth previously, but essentially craft beer is a reaction to large breweries dominating the marketplace, with an emphasis on quality and the best possible version of each beer at its heart. More specifically, I’d say there’s a general trend at the moment for less bitter and more fruity beers, driven this time by the rapid expansion in the number of hop varieties available, and with it the variety of flavours on offer. Java is our nod to this – tropical and stone fruit character in an easy drinking pale ale, all with hops that were released relatively recently. Alcohol free beer is probably the fastest growing sector in brewing at the moment, as some people drink less and are looking for healthy alternatives to normal beer – it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a few years and would be a challenge with our set-up, but never say never!
