California Common

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KayaBrew

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I really love this style. It comes up in my brewing rotation every 5 batches or so. I've never seen any other commercial version of it except Anchor Steam. Do any other breweries make Cali Common?
 
I really love this style. It comes up in my brewing rotation every 5 batches or so. I've never seen any other commercial version of it except Anchor Steam. Do any other breweries make Cali Common?

A few,
Southampton West Coast Steam Beer, Old Dominion Victory Amber, Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber Lager :mug:
 
I really love this style. It comes up in my brewing rotation every 5 batches or so. I've never seen any other commercial version of it except Anchor Steam. Do any other breweries make Cali Common?

One of my favorites, too. I'm doing an all-Clusters one now, doing a truly American style with the indigenous American hop.

Anchor are the ones who revived it. Telegraph California Ale is quite good, too. Rock Bottom Brewery (a fairly sizeable chain) has made cali commons for on-site sale from time to time; the ones I've had varied wildly in quality.

Troeg's Scratch 32 was great, it was a one-off near the end of 2010. You might still be able to find it if you're in the area.
 
Got one fermenting now. First try at the style. Used Northern Brewer Hops. Looking forward to trying it out. I have no idea what to expect.
 
Got one fermenting now. First try at the style. Used Northern Brewer Hops. Looking forward to trying it out. I have no idea what to expect.

Got one of these fermenting as well. Used Northern Brewer and Cascade. Added some honey to the original recipe and it smells absolutely awesome! Can't wait until it's done!
 
Isn't that just Hopsmeister's brand name for their Clusters?

There are a couple of different hops that are called Cluster, these in particular are Old English aka Pacific Cluster which used to be grown quite a bit in California. There are also Early, Late and Yakima Cluster cultivars. Hopsmeister recently revived this variety and threw a trademarked name on it.
 
First, thanks for all the great replies. I'm going on a hunt for some if not all the beers everyone named. Second, I brew Yooper's CC recipe exclusively. I really like the all-Northern Brewer hops version of this, and according to JZ and JP, a "true" Cali Common uses only NB hops. I think I'll mix it up a little next time and try to get my hand on some US Clusters. :mug:
 
according to JZ and JP, a "true" Cali Common uses only NB hops. I think I'll mix it up a little next time and try to get my hand on some US Clusters. :mug:

A true steam/Cali common is defined only by using lager yeasts at ale temperatures.

JZ (very much so; he's a competition brewer who rarely strays from the absolut middle of the road, let alone pushes the boundaries) and JP (who's occasionally willing to reach out further, but is still fairly conservative) tend to define toward pretty narrow categories. As far as BJCP guidelines go, "Anchor Steam clone" is pretty much the only Cali common accepted and competition beers are supposed to be clones thereof or pretty close

Historically, though, steam beers were a much wider genre, and used all kinds of grain and hop bills. Even BJCP admits that by looking at things like the Flying Dog Old Scratch as Cali commons--plenty of historical examples used all kinds of grain bills and hop bills to make beers in the style. The only truly defining characteristic is using lager yeasts at higher temps--that's what "steam beer" or "Cali common" means when it gets down to it.
 
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