AK (Light Bitter) is one of those near extinct beer styles that is seldom heard of nowadays, during the 19th and 20th centuries the beer was commercially brewed by a number of breweries across Southern England and parts of the Midlands, but by the 1990’s McMullens in Hertford was the only brewery left in the country that was still producing a Light Bitter. Known more formally as McMullens AK (3.7%), this curiously named beer was first brewed as early as 1833, it has since become the brewery’s flagship beer and continues to be sold in their pubs around North London and Hertfordshire. Yet there is discrepancy in its very name, as they use the term AK to denote a Light Mild, yet this moniker was never used by other breweries to denote a Light Mild, indeed it was generally referred to by breweries as a term for a Light Bitter, how did this discrepancy come about in the first place?
There’s a number of theories
about the origins of AK, McMullen’s publicity department claim that it was invented
and named after Arthur King who owned a number of public houses. The story goes
“what he wanted was a brilliant beer of medium colour, but with its attributes
perfectly balanced into an attractive blend of flavours and with a pleasing
aroma. The beer although not sweet, should have its sugar content apparent on
the palate. Similarly, the blend of hop flavours and aroma must be pleasing and
delicate, yet never pronouncedly bitter.”[1]
Another theory goes that the name AK has Flemish origins, as Martyn Cornell
notes “the K in AK came from koyt, the name of a hopped beer found in the Low
Countries and Northern Germany in the 15th century and later, and the A was
from ankel, the word in Old Flemish for “single”. “Single koyt” certainly
existed, and was the name of a lower-strength beer.”[2]
He has since disproved those theories, after finding no verifiable evidence of the
link between Single Koyt and AK; another theory goes that AK was attributed to
the common practise in the early 19th century where Excise Officers
labelled beer barrels by letter codes, in order to identify their contents. These
markings would generally be interpreted either by ‘X’ or ‘K’, for instance “Mild
Ales either have 1, 2, or 3 X’s – Strong Ales having 4 or 5” McMullens note. This
labelling system was imperative, as the Herts Advertiser points out “Brewers
used both X and K to denote the strength of their beers: the more Xs and Ks,
the stronger the beer.”[3]
These identification codes were only ever intended for internal use although
very occasionally there has been a commercially released beer that still bears
it’s excise code, most notably Greene King’s XX Mild (3.0%). Other theories include Excise
Officers substituted XX for Mild with an A (which has since been disproven), another
theory is that AK was named after the term Asquith’s Knockout when PM Herbert Asquith put a substantial raise on the tax of standard beer barrels in 1914 to help
funder the war effort, yet this is anachronistic as there have beers marketed
with name AK going as far back as 1846, with the earliest mention featured in an edition of the
Chelmsford Chronicle that year where it lists an Ind Coope AK .
Perhaps the strongest thread of
evidence of AK comes from an issue of ‘English Mechanic and World of Science’
published in 1870, which describes AK as a keeping ale. Seemingly, this term
was subsequently adopted by breweries, as Gary Gillman notes “the term did not –
in trade ads to the public denote conditioning of the beer at the brewery.
Rather it referred to how long the beer would last in consumer hands and
specifically, whether in Summer.”[4]
For instance in a press release from 1890, Hunt Edmunds & Co advertised their
AK Beer in the Witney Gazette & West Oxfordshire Advertiser as “noted for its
great purity, brilliancy and tonic properties. Recommended as a good bitter for
family use. Season brewed and guaranteed to keep.” Going further back in time
in 1887, Blanket Hall Brewery advertised in the Witney Express, Oxfordshire and
Midland Counties Herald, stated “pale and mild ales, now in fine condition, and warranted
to remain sound on draught during the Summer months.” From this information,
Gillman surmises that the term of AK was a term for a Light Bitter, which was meant
for keeping over the Summer months. The writer Ron Pattison discovered from
delving into late 19th century brewing records, noted “the closest
is "mild bitter Ale", where mild is clearly referring to the fact
that it's unaged.”[5] In
his post
on AK beers released between 1877 – 1913, he found no record of the term Light
Mild for AK, instead it was listed under a number of names like AK Light Bitter,
AK Mild Beer, AK Family Ale, AK Stock Bitter Ale and AK Dinner Ale for
instance. The term Light Mild however does appear as early as 1892, where in an
advert in the Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, Hole’s Family Ales
lists a Light Mild in their range although it’s marked by an “X” rather than “AK”.[6]
Even in more recent times “X” was occasionally used to categorize a Light Mild
such as a 1951 Shepherd Neame Light Mild, nowhere does it mention within Pattison’s article
on Light Milds sold between 1946 – 1964, does it feature AK. Therefore, from
historical accounts, AK (Light Bitter) is a completely separate style from Light
Mild. The moniker AK was merely used as a marketing term by breweries as a means
of identifying a Light Bitter to consumers, and as a means of differentiating
itself from Light Mild.
Even-though Light Bitter and Light Mild are similar in strength, colour, gravity and flavour, from a historical angle they’ve always been marketed as different types of beers, since there is no evidence of AK ever
being advertised as a Light Mild, even well into the 20th century. We
can only surmise the contemporary labelling of McMullens AK as a Light Mild was merely a cunning
and misleading marketing ploy on behalf of McMullens, indeed Cornell notes that
the distant past, the brewery itself was labelling their AK differently, “at
one stage, McMullen was describing AK on pump clips as a “mild bitter”, though
the beer was sold in polypins in the 1980s as “Trad bitter”. The company
dropped the description “mild” for AK only in the early 1990s.” So, the next time you sample some AK, remember it is really a Light
Bitter, rather than a Light Mild. Perhaps it’s about time the marketing
department at McMullens corrected their decades long mistake and stopped engaging
in such blatant historical revisionism.
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