Pretty Things 1901 KK

There's a beer here in the Northeast being produced by Pretty Things called 1901 KK and it's a reproduction of a brew from London in 1901 taken from the original brew sheet, apparently. Anyhow, it's very good. They say the beer uses no roasted grains and gets the black color from sugar. Is this a hallmark of the KK style? Are they carmelizing the sugars first?

"Our KK boasts a black colour, cocoa-coloured head, and satisfying dryness with a substantial bitterness. Most of the colour of this beer comes from sugar, which is surprising and not something you see often these days – almost never here in the states."

Anybody have a recipe for one of these?

zc

Burton Ale, eh?

This blog should get you started.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/label/KK

Here's an easier link for the recipes from there

http://www.unholymess.com/blog/lets-brew

There's a 1928 Barclay Perkins KK recipe that might be close to what you want

Go to the barclay perkins blog mentioned above and directly contact Ron about that beer. They get the recipes from him. He was more than helpful to me with trying to replicate the pretty things 1855 EIP.

MrOH said:

Go to the barclay perkins blog mentioned above and directly contact Ron about that beer. They get the recipes from him. He was more than helpful to me with trying to replicate the pretty things 1855 EIP.

Click to expand...

Fantastic, thanks for that info. And thanks to the previous repliers. Really enjoyed poking around those sites, especially the barclay perkins blog.

zc

I had trouble finding this as for some reason I thought it was a Barclay Perkins beer. It's actually from Whitbread.

This is the recipe for the original Whitbread beer:

pale malt 41.32%
mild ale malt 43.80%
brown malt 1.65%
No. 3 invert 13.22%
per 6 US gallons:
6 oz Goldings
3 oz Worcester hops
OG 1075.8
FG 1028.0

patto1ro said:

I had trouble finding this as for some reason I thought it was a Barclay Perkins beer. It's actually from Whitbread.

This is the recipe for the original Whitbread beer:

pale malt 41.32%
mild ale malt 43.80%
brown malt 1.65%
No. 3 invert 13.22%
per 6 US gallons:
6 oz Goldings
3 oz Worcester hops
OG 1075.8
FG 1028.0

Click to expand...

Many thanks! This beer would be at 6.6 srm if I'm correct, but the version Pretty Things produces is black. Any thoughts on that?

zc

zippyclown said:

Many thanks! This beer would be at 6.6 srm if I'm correct, but the version Pretty Things produces is black. Any thoughts on that?

zc

Click to expand...

Dann used something more like No. 4 invert, I believe.

It was common to colour beers up to the correct shade with caramel. Not sure if Whitbread were doing that in 1901, but they certainly were in the 1920's. When the colour was about 25 SRM.

Whatever program you're using must not be counting the color of the sugar properly. At over 13% of the bill, a dark sugar should change the color significantly. Dunno about black, but certainly over 6 or 7 SRM.

lowtones84 said:

Whatever program you're using must not be counting the color of the sugar properly. At over 13% of the bill, a dark sugar should change the color significantly. Dunno about black, but certainly over 6 or 7 SRM.

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Good point, was moving quickly and entered inverted sugar into Beersmith which is listed at 0.0 srm. Not sure what the profile of #4 or #3 invert sugar would be or how to enter that in Beersmith... Anybody?

zippyclown said:

Good point, was moving quickly and entered inverted sugar into Beersmith which is listed at 0.0 srm. Not sure what the profile of #4 or #3 invert sugar would be or how to enter that in Beersmith... Anybody?

Click to expand...

Found the answer to my question at:
http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

No. 3 is 60 SRM. You can just change the SRM value in Beersmith. Add invert sugar, save it and then edit the entry and up the SRM to 60. I do it all the time.

patto1ro said:

No. 3 is 60 SRM. You can just change the SRM value in Beersmith. Add invert sugar, save it and then edit the entry and up the SRM to 60. I do it all the time.

Click to expand...

Right, got that part. And it looks like No.4 is about 300 SRM, which if used in place of No.3 puts the recipe at a pretty darn dark 33 SRM in Beersmith.

So voilà, I guess.

zc

zippyclown said:

Right, got that part. And it looks like No.4 is about 300 SRM, which if used in place of No.3 puts the recipe at a pretty darn dark 33 SRM in Beersmith.

So voilà, I guess.

zc

Click to expand...

Was it really that dark? I'm trying to remember. Maybe I should ask Dann.

patto1ro said:

I had trouble finding this as for some reason I thought it was a Barclay Perkins beer. It's actually from Whitbread.

This is the recipe for the original Whitbread beer:

pale malt 41.32%
mild ale malt 43.80%
brown malt 1.65%
No. 3 invert 13.22%
per 6 US gallons:
6 oz Goldings
3 oz Worcester hops
OG 1075.8
FG 1028.0

Click to expand...

Sorry, one last question. What was the mash time/temp and boil time on something like this?

patto1ro said:

Was it really that dark? I'm trying to remember. Maybe I should ask Dann.

Click to expand...

Had their KK this past New Year's eve for the first time and unfortunately (but understandably) can't visualize it today. I want to say it was very dark brown to black. But my recollection is probably skewed by the description I read from their website that describes it as simply "Black".

Let me know if you find out.

zippyclown said:

Sorry, one last question. What was the mash time/temp and boil time on something like this?

Click to expand...

Mash at 152º F, sparge at 180º F.

The original mashing scheme is more complicated: mash, stand 30 minutes, underlet, stand 2 hours, sparge, mash again, then sparge again. Boil times were 1.75 hours first copper, 2 hours second copper.

MrOH said:

Go to the barclay perkins blog mentioned above and directly contact Ron about that beer. They get the recipes from him. He was more than helpful to me with trying to replicate the pretty things 1855 EIP.

Click to expand...

Don't want to threadjack here, but I'm interested in the info you got from Ron about the 1855 EIP....I just sent you a PM.

zippyclown said:

Good point, was moving quickly and entered inverted sugar into Beersmith which is listed at 0.0 srm. Not sure what the profile of #4 or #3 invert sugar would be or how to enter that in Beersmith... Anybody?

Click to expand...

patto1ro said:

Was it really that dark? I'm trying to remember. Maybe I should ask Dann.

Click to expand...

Having the KK right now. It's dark dark dark copper, just short of black. Eyeballing it I'd say around 25-30 SRM.