Cask beer is pumped
I was telling a few friends about some of Vancouver’s periodic cask ale events and was shocked to realize that they didn’t even know what cask ale is! I suppose it is one of those terms that I just take for granted. In any case, I thought I should post a blurb for the uninitiated.
Cask ale is unfiltered, unpasteurized beer that is served right from the cask it is conditioned in. Cask ale must be served via a pump (or gravity) because there is no artificial pressure, which is usually generated by added CO2 or nitrogen. Cask ale is often dry hopped, meaning that hops are thrown into the cask before the secondary fermentation phase, which is generally referred to as conditioning (live yeast remains because it is not filtered out). Cask ale is usually served a little warmer than most beer, at about ten degrees Celsius. Cask ale is the real ale that the Campaign For Real Ale is promoting. The cask ale Wikipedia page has a lot of great information if you are interested in learning more.
I really enjoy real cask conditioned ales, which are generally more hoppy (bitter) and less carbonated than their un cask conditioned counterparts. I also find cask conditioned ales to be smoother and more flavorful. If you are interested in tasting some cask conditioned ale, I recommend signing up for the CAMRA Vancouver mailing list. Their weekly email will tell you where to find cask ale, which is available every day at the Irish Heather, every Thursday at Dix, and every last Friday of the month at Big Ridge.
Also, if you were wondering, bottle conditioned ale is similar to cask ale, save that it is aged in the bottle and not in a cask. Give it a try if you see it in your local liquor store!
Cheers,
Chris
One point of clarification: Not all cask ales are dry hopped, and hopping levels have no effect on fermentation. Hops flavour the beer, but it’s the yeast and malt (or other fermentable adjuncts like wheat, corn, etc. if they are used) that do the work to create the alcohol.
It’s possible to make a beer with no hops or other flavourings at all, although it probably wouldn’t taste very good. Unless you really, REALLY like malt.
Thanks Greg, I wasn’t trying to imply that hops are doing the fermentation, my bad. I am aware of how the yeast interacts with the malt, but I obviously didn’t show that well enough. I was under the impression that most cask ales were dry hopped, thanks for clarifying.
Cheers,
Chris
Thanks for spreading the word about Real Ale (cask-conditioned or bottle-conditioned), Chris. I would also mention that you can get a cask-condition ale from a different BC brewer every Sunday at The Whip (http://www.thewhiprestaurant.com/). They also have an excellent annual brewmasters dinner in January, the Feast of Five Firkins, featuring five courses paired with five cask ales from five different brewers.
As for the dry-hopping, Greg is correct in that not all casks are dry-hopped, nor need to be. There are a couple of reasons why you may see this here fairly often:
1. The brewer wants to make a cask of something different than just their regular beers, but may not have the time to come up with something completely different than what they are usually brewing. Simple solution? Just throw some hops into the cask and fill with your regular beer to give you something different enough.
2. It allows the brewer to make the beer as hoppy as he actually would like it to be, but can’t because a large percentage of average drinkers wouldn’t like it.
Nevertheless, even when brewers do make a cask version of exactly the same beer they have on draught, it can be noticeably different. I once did a tasting at Dix when they just happened to have both cask and draught versions of a smoked porter and IPA on at the same time. Our group tasted them side-by-side. Interestingly, everyone preferred the cask versions — smoother and more flavourful than the artificially carbonated versions. Many of these people were in the early stages of their beer explorations, so I was actually expecting the opposite — that they didn’t like cask ale because it was “flat.” Natural carbonation was fine with them.
You are very welcome Rick, and thank you very much for the added insight. I still have yet to visit the Whip and was sad to miss out on the feast of five firkins. We’ve talked about taking the whole family the Sunday closest to Erik’s upcoming birthday.
I would love to taste cask and draught ale side by side, do you know if and when Dix is doing that again? It must have been encouraging to find that your friends preferred cask ales to their uncasked bretheren. Similarly, I’ve found that my friends are easily swayed towards microbrewery and brewpub beer, save the one guy who keeps ordering Canadian at Big Ridge. These are good signs.
Cheers,
Chris
Don’t know if or when that will happen at Dix again; I think it just happened to be a coincidence that Derrick had two casks of what he had on draught. However, if you wanted to bring a group there on a Cask Thursday, we could see ahead of time if it could be set up…
I definitely do want to visit Dix on a cask day! I have indoor soccer every Thursday night right now though, and I don’t play as well after a beer or two, but hopefully we’ll have a break sometime soon. Erik went the week they had Jack the RIPA and he loved it.
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