I tried the best mild beer at the Wolverhampton Beer Festival and discovered a range of tastes and flavours

In the intervening 22 years since I graduated from university, I've been able to try different beers, from dark and chocolatey stouts to light and hoppy ales and IPA's full of mango, lemon, orange and pineapple flavour, attending beer festivals and trying new beers in different pubs up and down the land.

One style of beer that I've never got to grips with is Mild, which is one of the earliest forms of ale brewed in Britain, and shares its heritage with porters, stouts and brown ales.

Typically, milds are darker in colour, but can vary from a light caramel colour to a deep ruby and have been a staple of the beer scene across the Black Country for decades, with Banks's Mild a particular favourite.

Despite the decision to stop brewing Banks's Mild for cask and a general decline in milds over the last few years, there is still a demand for it and plenty of breweries are busy brewing up fine milds for consumption at pubs and beer festivals.

Which one is the best is a matter for debate and judgement, such is the choice out there, but the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is busy with finding out what is the best from a panel of judges at different beer festivals across the country.

The Wolverhampton Beer Festival is no exception, with the stage of the outdoor marquee at the Wolverhampton Arts Centre the setting for a day of judging different beers by category for the West Midlands and West Central area, an area stretching down as far as Oxfordshire.

I was invited by the organisers of the festival to be part of the judging panel for the Mild category for the first day of the festival on Thursday (July 24) so made my way to the centre and met up with my fellow judges, including Richard Wilkes from the Vine Inn in Wednesfield, Louise Clive from the Keg & Comfort in Oxley, a member of Wolverhampton CAMRA and a brewer from Banks's Brewery.

We were met by the panel chair Dave King, who talked us through the process of what to do with each beer, while I also took in the table in front of me, full of glasses and a packet of crackers (designed to clear your palate while drinking the different beers).

Dave also had two bottles which were valuable to him, one of Banks's Mild and another of Sunbeam, which he said he was proud of and would keep hold of long after the brewery had closed its doors.

For each beer, we were told to check the appearance, checking on its colour, clarity, sparkle and head, its aroma, looking for hop, malt and fruity aromas, its taste, meaning how it might appeal to you and the different flavours, and the aftertaste, effectively what it tasted like a minute later.

We would score each out of 10 and have the scores totalled together later, with the taste category being scored to reflect the higher scores as the most important parameter.

What became clear to me was that the other people on the panel were a lot more clued in about the different bits of the beer than I was, looking at the clarity of the drink, the different smells and the robustness of the taste, but I still gave as good as I could with it.

We didn't know what the beers were until afterwards, so were working blind. I will say what they were as part of the story to help with the guide.

The first beer was Holden's Mild from Woodsetton, so a nice local beer and what I said looked very clear, had not a lot of sparkle and a faint aroma, but had a nice clean taste and a slightly sour aftertaste, but one which improved after every drink.

I scored this one as eight for appearance and taste and seven for aroma and aftertaste, for a score of 30.

The second beer was Hobson's Mild from Cleobury Mortimer, which I said had a caramel smell and tasted of toffee and caramel, very rich, and had a smooth aftertaste.

It was my favourite as I scored it as eight for appearance and aroma and nine for taste and aftertaste, for a score of 34.

The third was Hooky from Banbury, which I said looked light and clear and had a lot of life to it in the head, but not a lot of smell and a slightly sour taste, with a hoppy aftertaste.

I scored it as eight for appearance, five for aroma and taste and seven for aftertaste, giving it a score of 25.

The fourth was Uttoxeter Parkland and this was the one which united the table as it was the worst one of the five beers, with no real taste or aftertaste and very dark colour, just a poor drink.

I scored it as five for appearance, just four for aroma, seven for taste and six for aftertaste for a score of 22. I think I might have been a bit generous as I'm sure it's not a bad pint, but probably didn't travel well.

Finally, there was Grave Digger from Nuneaton, a drink which was the darkest so far with a treacle smell that I wasn't sure about, but a very smooth and pleasant taste and aftertaste.

I scored it as seven for appearance, five for aroma, but eight for taste and aftertaste, for a score of 28.

It was Gravedigger which, in the end, was voted as the best of the five, but I was pleased to see Hobson's Mild scored second as I really enjoyed the taste of it and would happily drink it in a pub if it was available.

The experience of being on the panel was a good one, with like-minded people enjoying some good drinks and also sharing stories about beer. I've met Richard and Louise before and it was nice to talk about their pubs and the work they're doing.

The humble mild is a drink that acts as a starter for ale drinkers, not too strong and packed with enough flavour to keep it interesting, so go out and try one and see what you think.