When DC Beer editor Jacob Berg approached Bluejacket’s Ro Guenzel about a collaboration, Berg initially proposed a cream ale.
But Guenzel, director of brewing operations at Bluejacket in Washington, D.C., and Brewery Saint X in New Orleans, had an intriguing counteroffer: a Kentucky common. After all, Guenzel already had plenty of crisp, pale, highly sessionable lagers on hand. Instead, he wanted to turn his attention toward a darker malt-delivery vehicle—but without sacrificing that crisp drinkability.
In composition and background, it may be helpful to think of Kentucky common as a darker cream ale. Here’s how Robert Wahl and Max Henius describe it in their 1901 American Handy Book: “Like California steam beer, Kentucky common beer is mainly consumed by the laboring classes and is chiefly brewed in Louisville, Kentucky. It is marketed while still in an early stage of fermentation.”
Guenzel and team brewed the beer in early January and tapped it just a few weeks later, timing the release for a live recording of the DC Beer Show podcast at Bluejacket.
“Also of note,” Guenzel says, “we used way more late-addition hops then would have been historically utilized.” Typically, Louisville brewers would’ve hopped their commons at only about a half-pound per barrel. (That’s roughly 1.3 ounces for a five-gallon batch, or less than 2 grams per liter.) They would’ve used mostly hops from New York state or the West Coast, plus a late dash of imported ones, likely Czech or German.
This 21st Century version is hopped at just less than a pound per barrel. The grist, primarily from Valley Malt in Holyoke, Massachusetts, also includes a portion of malted corn.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch Size: 5 Gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
IBUs: 17
ABV: 4.7%