Brown ale breweries, such as Whitbread, introduced a second weaker and cheaper brown ale that was sometimes just a sweetened version of dark Mild. These beers had an original gravity of around 1.037. After World War II, most breweries stopped producing these stronger brown ales, with the exception of some breweries in the northeast of England. The majority had an OG in the range 1.030–1.035, or around 3% ABV, much like Manns Brown Ale today. North American brown ales trace their heritage to American home brewing adaptations of certain northern English beers, and the English influence on American Colonial Ales. English brown
Burton Ale have recreated “the stronger, darker styles of the past, and the listing sections of successive Good Beer Guides are packed with stouts, porters, barley wines and old ales.” In recent years craft brewers in the US, UK and elsewhere have brewed Burton Ales, described as such, based on old recipes. Historic Burton Ale recipes are also available for homebrewing. "Ballantine Burton was one of Fritz Maytag's inspirations in the creation of his Old Foghorn Barley Wine at the Anchor brewery, in San Francisco" and the Pabst Brewing Company recreated Ballantine Burton Ale in 2015. To mark its 25th anniversary, BOSS