History Matters
According to the Beer Judge Certification Program, and the people who’ve done the research, Kentucky Common was beer style brewed in and around Louisville, Kentucky at the end of the last century. It was a light alcohol beer brewed with six-row barley malt and corn grits and a little dark malt served almost exclusively on draft. It was a really simple beer fermented quickly and sent out within a week of brewing.
Against the Grain’s Kamen Knuddeln is a sour porter. It’s black. It’s roasty. It’s full of lactic acid. Somebody forgot to do their homework. It’s sort of messed up that a brewery, in Louisville, is brewing dark, sour beers and calling it Kentucky Common. It’s not Kentucky Common.
How did we get here?
For one thing, there’s the urge to make all old beer into rustic beer. People like to point to all the wood casks. Wood is notorious for housing wild yeast. True. And that’s why brewers lined their barrels in pitch.
Plenty of otherwise smart people like to point out no one knew what yeast was before Louis Pasteur came along. Yeast isn’t even in the Reinheitsgebot! Also true, but that assumes no one noticed the krausen on top of their beer. It’s possible to selectively breed yeast even if you can’t see it.
On the other hand is the jump in logic between whiskey making and brewing. Yes, they start with the same base ingredients. But that doesn’t mean the same guys drinking sour mash bourbon would make sour mash beer. If Kentucky Common was being sent packaged and delivered in six days there would be no time for sour bacteria to really take hold.
Yet, the myth persists. Against the Grain continues to call a sour stout a Kentucky Common, and half the Google results for Kentucky Common contain homebrewers discussing sour mash.
Well. At least you know the truth.
