Northern British Dark Mild recipe critique

[garethliam]

Hi,
I contacted a brewer to ask about the grain bill they use in their dark mild ale. Within a day I was surprised to see a reply!

90%. Maris Otter
6% Brewers Invert Sugar ... Can I sub candi sugar/ golden syrup / make my own?
2%. Crystal Malt
2% positive Caramel for color. ... I would rather not use a coloring - can I up the crystal malt or sub another malt to achieve a dark ruby red color?

Thoughts, suggestions on adapting the above commercial recipe for a homebrew? I was thinking of playing around with a dark candi sugar and a dark crystal malt to attain the color.

The brewer, great guy, gave me some good pointers about not using chocolate malt or a large amount of crystal, mainly because of the flavors they would bring. He also gave me some insights into the history of the beer... Some of his notes are below.

...
The reason for using caramel is that the Dark Mild was originally called Old Tom and in the past it was made out of Barnsley Bitter with the addition of Pontefract Liquorice for colour. Caramel is the closest practical alternative and avoids the burnt flavours you get from Mild Ale and dark malts.
...

Thanks!

 

[garethliam]

Follow up. I came up with the following recipe... I think I will need to go with a chocolate malt to add color, anything else that would work here? Read around and this is pretty common with the style.
dark mild recipe