Dann (pictured here) and Martha brew Pretty Things beer. Recently they started a project called Once Upon a Time, a brewery making historical beers with the help of beer historians. They dig up recipes from the past and strictly re-create styles that no one has drunk in decades. Dann claimed that in some of the recipes, they out-geek the beer geeks.

Join us this Thursday 3/20 at 8pm for the launch of Pretty Things 1955, a recipe dug up from the Whitbread Brewery in post-war London. Dann and Martha will be in the house. Enzo is making some London-inspired snacks (less British, more Indian, any guesses?) with help from Pushpir of Guru the Caterer. And we’ll have $5 glasses of 1955 all night. The fun starts at 8pm, and there 10 seats available for a pre-launch talk with the brewers. Sign up using this link if you want to attend the talk.

Here’s a bit of information on the beer straight from the folks at Pretty Things:

Welcome to the 1950s! Whitbread brewery in London was once the biggest brewery in the world. However by the 1950s its decline had begun. Their Double Brown is a true post-war British beer: dark, with some roasted malt character, but low body due to the use of completely fermentable brewing caramels, a practice that continues to be a hallmark of British dark ale brewing today. At 5.1% abv, the beer showed that the supply chain for raw materials in post-war Britain was easing, although rationing had only ended in 1954. (This is in reference to one of our previous recreations, a Mild ale from 1945 which was 2.8% abv largely due to barley shortages). This beer is another easy-drinking cracker, which takes you right back to 1950s London and plonks you on a wooden chair in a London pub.