Let's Brew - 1914 Crowley AK

As far as beer ranges go, Crowley’s is pretty confusing. Making AK a welcome, understandable sight.

The OG is right where I would expect a pre-war AK to be: somewhere in the mid-1040ºs. I keep finding new AK’s from this period. But the war was not kind to them. As they were often a brewery’s weakest Pale Ale, they disappeared as strengths fell and what had been posher beers took their gravity slot.

The recipe, which consists of just pale malt and No. 3 invert sugar, is almost Whitbread-like in its simplicity. Though it is odd to see No. 3 in a Bitter. The colour is a little on the dark side, but not crazily so. I’ve other brews which use No. 2 instead of No. 3. It all depends on what AK was being parti-gyled with. This one was brewed with L, others with B. It’s the L parti-gyles that have the No. 3.

The hops are English from 1912 and 1913 plus Oregon from 1913. Given the age of some of the hops, I’ve reduced the quantity.

1914 Crowley AK
pale malt	10.00 lb	93.02%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.75 lb	6.98%
Cluster 120 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 90 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1047
FG	1011
ABV	4.76
Apparent attenuation	76.60%
IBU	28
SRM	8
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley ale