A few issues back, I wrote about some tasty blonde ale styles. This time the assignment is two authentic American styles.
Cream Ale and California common, though, stand alone as original US styles.
For readers in their 20s or 30s: way back at the dawn of the current craft brewing age, the mid-1970s, there were but two native US beer styles, the blonde cream ale and a copper-colored style that used to be called “steam beer.” For legal reasons, the latter is now called California common beer, although that term does not appear on the label.
Today, there are more than a few all-American, homegrown beer styles produced by innovative brewers. Most of these styles developed out of a very simple process: take a recipe for an established style—say, wheat beer—do something to it, and see what happens. If enough happened, a new, American version of an old style was born.
Cream ale and California common, though, stand alone as original US styles. They are certainly not exotic like the Belgian lambic, enormous like barley wine, or full of character like dry stout. They are like Kristina Abernathy, the southern blonde Weather Channel honey, not Liz Hurley, the English model and actress with a wild streak as long as the Mississippi.
Don’t get me wrong. The world needs Liz Hurleys to keep life interesting and stir the blood. But, men, if you have nice, respectable, God-fearing parents, whom would you choose to bring home to meet them? The foreign, dark-haired, ultra-sexy Liz or the cute all-American beauty with stable, marrying qualities, Kristina?
That’s the sort of beers these are—like the pretty girl next door.
Cream ale and California common are worthy alternatives to some everyday drinking beers. You could substitute cream ale for standard and premium American lager, and California common for other copper-colored ales and lagers.
Cream ale is categorized an ale hybrid; and California common, a lager hybrid.
