What are your Top 3 AKs?

That sounds like an interesting recipe above. I have copied it and put it in my recipe file. Can't really anticipate at all what the resultant beer would taste like. Pretty stoked to make this.

 

Top 3 AKs?
Well, the 47, the 74, and the 101.

 

I don't have a top three, only a number one:

Kalashnikov

 

Here is the link to the thread in hb forum

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/group-brew-ak-comments-volunteers.196598/

 

I always get a kick out of how much these older names confuse people. It's probably just because I'm a brewer, but looking over a couple recipes on Ron's blog, it's immediately obvious that these are just pretty standard lighter pale ales, bitters, whatever you want to call them. We have to remember that beer style names are marketing devices and continuously evolve over time, much more than the beers themselves.

 

No way, I say Pliny is better!

 

I didn't make the beer, interpret the style or otherwise name the beer. Just pointing out a US offering that in the brewery's interpretation is an AK. somebody call the style police. i've had a lot of beer that claims to be one thing but is probably really something else (a la every fucking beer being labeled an [insert descriptor here] IPA of some sort).

 

There's only one...

Alaska

 

Though there was only one AK, AK47

 

yea I know. But its a crazy combo of a incorrect description of what a mild is. and what a Ak is. Not attacking you, just the beer. No other way to do it, since the bros are not interested in correcting the beer styles problems.

 

one is a gun and one is a name for some damn fine weed.
at least the ones I seen....

 

Understood. That's why I said it was a "nod to a Mild." It also uses wild yeast and lactobacillus, so definitely not a mild of any sort.

 

Heh, I read this and immediately thought, "so...a session IPA?"

Then a few seconds later....

Perhaps now I understand your inspiration for this thread. Is this your indirect way of saying, "session IPAs existed long before the recent popularity of these beers in America"? After having multiple All Day IPAs did you think, "Hmm, reminds me of an AK?"

 

If I were a betting man, new-style, because it seemed to be off in some significant respect.

This! Very helpful summary, very tight, and I know a lot more now about what we are talking about. Not really familiar with all the terms - parti-gyled in particular - but otherwise, I'm largely keeping up. Thank you.

 

I reckon

Snake River did a reasonable amount of research before they settled on using AK for their Dark Mild but I don't doubt that they could never have foreseen the complexity given what I've read in this thread.

 

So from what I understand an AK isn't really a definitive style, but rather a arbitrarily defined beer with characteristics similar to milds, bitters, and pale ales?

 

This response made my brain hurt less. This was helpful, thank you sir.