Hi all - I’m looking into brewing a Kentucky Common and was thinking about adding apple flavor/essence and maybe cinnamon. Will this style work with apples and maybe cinnamon? Or should I do this with a Porter instead? Thanks and happy Friday!
No offense, but it sounds like you haven’t really thought this through. You should have a solid idea if the base beer first and THEN think about what you can add to enhance it. It kinda sounds like you’ve decided you want to use apple and cinnamon and you just want to shove 'em into some beer.
No, I was already planning to brew Common this fall and thought it might be cool to add some apple, if it’s good for that style.
Honest question, have you had a legit Kentucky Common? They aren’t really sour, more of a dark cream ale.
It might taste good but… it won’t be a Kentucky Common. I agree with Denny. It just seems like a strange choice to spruce up, since KC is a historical style that most brewers have never ever tasted and only just recently was understood well enough to be resurrected. Almost like blasphemy or something.
Welcome to the forum by the way…
I say, go for it. If you like apples n spice I’m sure it will be good and something fun to do.
I still disagree with the assertion a KY Common was never historically tart. While I agree with the Brown Cream ale, a sour mash version adds a nice low tart complexity.
With that in mind, I would suggest you just brew something else to make your apple cinnamon ale.
Sure some were tart due to poor packaging or process - just like there are some Craft beers you can find today that are off. If someone finds a primary record of a brewery doing a sour mash, then it is a different story.
Isnt it just an esoteric
Isnt it just an esoteric subject at this point? It seems to me that you’d have to be born about 1900 and have a heck of a memory to be able to say with any authority what a true Kentucky Common tasted like.
Why do you say that you should have a base beer first and then add stuff to it?
He is saying that one should figure out how to get a solid version of the base beer, then consider ways to enhance or change it.
That’s probably it. Trouble is, maybe his Kentucky common is solid… only his first post. Tuff to say, but if anyone would know it would be Denny.
The supposition has been that a sour mash was used due to the proximity to the Bourbon distillers. Brewing logs from 2 of the Louisville breweries show that is not true, no sour mash. We all know that Scotish Brewers use peated malt in Scotch Ales right? ;) The records show that is not true.
Could it have become sour once out in the trade, yes. I have had beers in England that we’re going off and taking on a sourish wines finish, Fullers ESB on the last trip. Those “strong” beers move slow at some pubs.
Right, but at some point its like being a dinosaur expert. Im not convinced the fossil record will prove what they sounded like…
Kentucky Commons had their chance, and nature selected them for extinction 
I still think he can brew one and put apples in it if he wants to. If clams in a saison works, what the heck, right?
When the definitive reference for beers in the early 20th Century defines the beer as being a particular way it CANNOT be discounted unless one agrees to discount the entire reference. Whether the tart character came from sour mash or yeast/bacterium, it was certainly present. All the “proof” I have seen that it did not have that character were brew logs which had no mention of anything other than grists.
So when Wahl & Henius says the beer was tart in 1908…it was tart at that time…end of story.
So you’re suggesting that they didn’t do a sour mash, but somehow got a tartness from adding rod shaped bacteria to the fermentation? Thats just crazy talk!
Some beer historians have said that one reference in Wahl and Henius is the only one. Other editions of Wahl and Henius don’t have it.
I think we can agree that a 4% beer with moderate hop rates can go off in the trade. Was it brewed to be sour?
Hey, I have had sour pints of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at a local bar (I don’t go there anymore due to filthy tap lines).
I have both the 1901 (same as 1902) and 1908 versions of W&H mentioning KY Common (one is the actual book, one is a scan). The early version simply had a brief description of the style.
Rod shaped bacterium would be lactobacillus.
I don’t see it as an issue. There were Louisville breweries making Berliner Weiss, it ain’t much of a stretch to believe yeast having lacto could have made it into a KY Common.
You’re the man, Dix. Those BJCP nerds are, well… nerds. I loved your recipe with the sour mash.
Great advice all, and I learned some stuff too - Thanks.