We ugly Americans love to take credit for everything--including all forms of great-tasting beer--but in all honesty we didn't invent much. We owe most of our favourite ales and lagers to our immigrant forefathers from England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium, Holland, etc. American craft beer is some of the greatest in the world nowadays, but we're standing on the shoulders of giants, as they say.
However, Kentucky Common Beer is one little-known beer style we really did invent. I guess that's not much of a claim to fame, since it nearly disappeared for several generations. It was also referred to as Cream Beer, Dark Cream Beer, Cream Common or just Common Beer . You've probably heard of American Cream Ale or even California Common, popularized by Anchor Steam. Kentucky Common Beer was a similar, albeit darker and murkier version of adjunct-heavy top-fermented table beer consumed across the middle and southern United States of America. It was often sour-mashed, just like the preliminary step for distilling Kentucky bourbon. It was the most popular beer in these regions for nearly a century.
A newspaper advertisement from 1904:
A historic source text for Kentucky Common Beer:
Wall & Henius American Handy-book of Brewing, a 1902 brewing book, published by the University of Michigan.
OG: 1040-1044
Grainbill: Pale Malt, 25-30% corn + some Brown Sugar, Caramel Malt, or Roasted Malt to darken the colour
Hops: 1/2 pound per barrel, variety not specified but almost certainly Cluster
IBU: low, ≈15?
Colour: "muddy" appearance
Yeast: top-fermenting ale strain
Although Kentucky Common Beers are still extremely rare, I've seen a few commercial brews in recent years from:
New Albanian Brewery in Indiana, Shorts Brewing Co in Michigan, Sierra Nevada in California, Summit Brewing in Minnesota, Upstate Brewing in New York, Verboten in Colorado, and Wellington County in Ontario.
I tasted a delicious homebrewed Kentucky Common at a St Louis Brews club meeting last year, and I've invited the brewer to comment here as well.
See also Wikipedia and new BJCP style guidelines and InsiderLouisville article.
Following is my personal interpretation. For the record, I am in no way claiming this is an authoritative recipe, but it came out tasting like the historic descriptions, to me at least.
SEYMOUR KENTUCKY COMMON BEER
6 US gallons = 5 Imperial gallons = 22.7 Liters
GRAINBILL:
79.5% = 7.63 lbs = 3462 g, Pale Malt
10% = .96 lb = 435 g, Flaked Corn
6% = .58 lb = 261 g, Crystal 40L Malt
1.5% = .14 lb = 65 g, Aciduated/Enzymatic Malt
1.5% = .14 lb = 65 g, Black Patent Malt
1.5% = .14 lb = 65 g, Chocolate Malt
HOPS:
1.4 oz = 40 g, Cluster, at beginning of 60 min boil
.7 oz = 20 g, Cascade, at flame-out then steep until chilled
YEAST:
regular top-fermenting ale yeast in primary fermentor (I used S-33, the old English EDME strain), then optionally Brett Brux in the secondary ( I bulk-aged for 6 months, though historic examples were mostly drunk fresh)
STATS (assuming around 77% mash efficiency and 81% yeast apparent attenuation):
OG: 1046
FG: 1009
ABV: 4.8%
IBU: 35