My brewing mantra has always been keep it simple. At the end of the day, you’ll find that it’s not only something you can try, but this is something you can incorporate regularly into your home beer-service regimen. Instead, let’s talk about options for brewing and serving cask-style ale using equipment you probably already have. Let’s assume that investing in your own stock of firkins and stillages and spiles and all that other “real ale” paraphernalia is something you’re not yet willing to do. Now that I’ve made it sound like a huge headache, here’s the reality: Not only is cask-conditioned ale a viable option for homebrewers, but many of these concerns can be addressed simply and cheaply. Finally, cask ale requires investment in some specialized equipment that also must be learned a conventional keg is a plug-and-play situation, with relatively little effort required beyond maintaining clean lines and a reasonable level of CO2 in the system. Shelf life is an issue, too since air enters the cask, it typically needs to be enjoyed within a few days. There is an art to cellarmanship and a learning curve for bar staff.
The result is a cool beer at peak freshness, with soft carbonation and a clear field to express its flavor profile.īesides the fact that many drinkers have a taste for the coldest beer full of zippy bubbles-often fined, filtered, and pasteurized-cask conditioning is not that easy to do. 52.) When the cellarperson decides that the beer is ready, the pub serves it either through a spigot via gravity or through a beer engine pulled via handpump into the glass. (For more about the equipment and conditioning process, see “Gearhead: American Real Ale: What Condition Cask Condition Is In,” p. The brewery might add dry hops and/or finings before sealing and delivering the cask to the pub for conditioning. Whatever the method, the goal is a relatively low level of carbonation in the finished beer. So far, not so different from a kegged beer, but here’s where they part ways: This transfer should occur before the end of primary fermentation, sometimes with a small dose of priming sugar or kräusen (actively fermenting wort) to help spark the secondary fermentation and natural carbonation. “Cask ale,” “cask-conditioned ale,” and “real ale” are terms often used interchangeably to describe beer that is fermented conventionally and then transferred to a serving vessel-that’s the cask. I really need to brew some cask-conditioned beer at home.”
When I crashed out for a nap about 40 minutes later, my final thought was, “Wow.
It was the easiest-drinking beer I’d ever had-despite its 50 IBUs and 7 percent ABV-and it was delightfully fresh and bright.
I walked in there one bright morning in late June some years ago and ordered an Aprihop IPA on cask-and then I ordered another, about 10 minutes later. Rehoboth Beach, to be precise, home of Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats-the brewpub where that brewery got its start in 1995, 10 gallons at a time. No, I was in the exotic wilds of … Delaware. My aha moment didn’t involve some Staffordshire pub or biscuit-forward dry-hopped bitter. I’ve got a few of those stories-but those experiences are not what sold me on cask ales. When cask ale fans lay out their pitch for why you ought to drink it, you’re likely to endure evocative tales of driving English back roads past neat, picturesque farms-or wandering cobbled London side streets through Victorian architecture-before visiting some small, unassuming, consummately cozy pub that’s been doing business since the Norman Conquest, where the narrator then revels in a perfectly sublime pint of bitter or mild.