Monday, 25 May 2026

AK Light Bitter

Due to public demand - well, one person requested it - here's a short discussion of AK. One of my many beery obsessions.

 

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9 comments:

Mick said...

Keep'm coming Ron. Very interesting. Thank you.

25 May 2026 at 03:24
Anonymous said...

Excellent! Thanks Ron.

25 May 2026 at 08:24
Anonymous said...

I was the person who requested it, thanks so much Ron!! After trawling through the blog, I had some ideas, but the concise-answer really nailed it down for me - as well as giving me good, simplified lines to feed people, when I’m trying to explain these things I’m into.

25 May 2026 at 16:26
Anonymous said...

Good and precise. Big fan of brewing in this style. It's nice to have the background info

25 May 2026 at 22:11
Clayton said...

Love these short informative videos. Thank you Ron. Also, here's a plug for your book AK! The story of a light bitter
Everything you need to know about AK, the classic Running Bitter of the 19th century. Including 50 historic recipes from 15 different breweries spanning more than 100 years.

26 May 2026 at 07:41
Brad McMahon said...

I'm drinking a 1943 Shepherd Neame AK I made from the recipe in that book right now!

26 May 2026 at 18:49
Ron Pattinson said...

Brad, and how does it taste?

27 May 2026 at 00:48
Brad McMahon said...

It's just like you would imagine. Not much flavour there at all, hardly any malt flavour with some graininess from the flaked barley. There is some Goldings aroma. I used a fairly mineral water profile given it was a Kent beer and that comes through on the taste. It's like you got half a pint of a pale ale and added another half pint of still mineral water.
Now I know what a WW2 beer tastes like!

28 May 2026 at 02:13
Anonymous said...

In 1949 Finland, A-beer (aka III-beer) was defined as a beer with alcohol by weight 3.7-4.4% (4.6-5.5% ABV). B-beer was 2.8-3.7% ABW (3.5-4.6% ABV). Just realised it fits your theory about the name of AK.
III-beer was ABV <5.7% in 1932-1937 (after prohibition) and ABV <4.9 in 1937-1949. The story goes that the new A-beer class was created to please the foreign public in the 1952 Olympics.

29 May 2026 at 07:05

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