Cask Appreciation: Piston or Gravity Dispense

Deep Ellum knows how to handle cask. It was the only place in Boston Pretty Things trusted. Had a few incredible pints of their 1838 Barclay Perkins X there a few years back.

https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/03/tale-of-two-bars.html

 

Fergus is a great bloke and really knows his stuff. Worth listening to.

 

“Fresh Ale is brewed in exactly the same way as Otter’s other cask beers, but rather than being filled into a cask, the beer is gently carbonated before being racked into a keg.

It is dispensed slightly cooler than traditional cask ale, but not as cold as keg. A light carbonation allows the beer to remain true to its cask ale equivalent in taste and body, says the brewer. As the beer has been filtered, the ale remains in perfect condition for weeks rather than days.

“Our Fresh Ale concept arrives at a time when customers are searching out drinks that are flavoursome, gently carbonated, and slightly cooler than traditional cask ale,” said Otter Brewery, managing director, Patrick McCaig.”

So, they came up with a marketing term of “Fresh Ale” to detail a kegged beer that has lower carbonation than other kegged beers and also served cool vs. cold?

I suppose breweries gotta do what they can to sell beer?

Also from the article: “From a publican’s perspective, the additional ‘shelf life’ of the product is exactly what is needed, especially in the run-up to the traditionally quieter months at the beginning of the year.”

Yes, cask ale can be ‘troublesome’ for the pub owners due to its very short shelf life (e.g., 4ish days from being tapped).

Cheers!

P.S. I suppose we all would have our own personal preferences but I would prefer that the pub owner just install a cask breather to extend the shelf life of the cask beer if turnover is a problem at their business.

 

Jumping in a little late on the topic, but I went to Yorkshire last summer mostly to drink a lot of Landlord on cask and in the process of drinking a wide variety of beer on cask served through a sparkler I can now say that I am also 100% team sparkler.

Here's a passage about sparklers from the CAMRA book Cellarmanship (6th edition) "The definitive guide to storing, caring for a serving cask ale."

With an ordinary short spout handpump or with gravity dispense, random sized bubbles are produced simply by the turbulent pouring of the beer; the result is the typical, loose, Southern head of large, irregular bubbles containing mostly trapped air. There is no effect on the taste or mouth-feel of the bulk beer. If the handpump is fitted with a tight sparkler the beer is forced through a number of small orifices, which have two effects: the agitation causes carbon dioxide to break out of the beer (similar to the effect of shaking a can of beer before opening) and the small streams of beer will entrap more air in smaller, more uniform bubbles. The result is the classic Yorkshire head -- a compact mass of small bubbles containing carbon dioxide as well as air. This style of head does have an effect on the bulk beer. Breaking out the carbon dioxide also brings out some of the aromatic hop oils giving an enhanced aroma to the pint although the beer below will be slightly less bitter and will have a little less condition than the same beer poured naturally. Aficionados will say that such beer 'drinks smoother.'

I can confirm, now that I have added sparklers to my homebrew setup, that the same beer does drink smoother through a sparkler.

Charlie Bamforth, the "Pope of Foam," retired professor Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at University of California, Davis (and now advisor to Sierra Nevada) shares his view on the use of sparklers in the short video:



Drink what makes you happy, but definitely give a sparkler a chance if you haven't ever tried it. It requires a fresh glass for every pour, but so does a Lukr faucet, and that doesn't seem to stop them from spreading like wildfire.

 

I completely agree, but there are people in this thread who have argued that they NEVER want a sparkler, which is going against what the brewer has intended in many cases. Unfortunately no sparkler is the default in the US and I was arguing for more options and open minds.

I'll end with this:

 

The majority of the craft breweries in my area who serve cask beers utilize sparklers.

Is this different in your area?

Cheers!

 

You are exactly right that the sparkler precipitates the CO2. You can see a similar effect by pouring a bottle or can of beer into a glass. Pour slowly down the side of the glass and you get a relatively small head; pour fast straight into the glass and you will get a big head, and less carbonation evident when you drink it. It's all a matter of personal preference. Since the condition of the cask (including CO2 content) can vary greatly, that is another complication.

 

See my picture in post 360 from Backbeat. Their heads are typically great, I've had questions from people on Beeradvocate if they used a sparkler and had to investigate. But nope, no sparkler.

 

Open minds? In most of the US, those who like cask beer can't afford to be too choosy. It's hard enough to find a cask, let alone one with a traditional style of beer flowing.

 

I gladly stand corrected! Apparently I need to leave Massachusetts more often. I am certainly under the NERAX influence. I do make it to Forest & Main in Philly a few times a year while dropping off and picking up my daughter from college, but I usually just run in and grab some cans and then get on the road. I did manage to gulp down a half pint of their mild on cask a few weeks ago as I shopped for cans (while my wife and daughter waited in the packed car!).

Interesting that you argue that sparklers are being used purely for aesthetics. Brewlab in the UK argues the same thing in their 2017 Zymurgy article on carbonation and oxygenation in cask beer, calling it a "fashion" trend:

"Fashion also impinges on cask dispense, with some regions of the UK traditionally incorporating a sparkler on the dispense font. These screw-on devices provide a tight orifice of small holes for the beer to pass before entering the glass. Turbulence is increased and a finer head results, inevitably with even more gas loss. In the above test, adding a sparkler to the beer reduced the carbonation by a whole 41 percent to just 0.95 g/L (0.48 vol.)—less than half of our target. Such a loss doesn’t necessarily cause dissent with drinkers who welcome the enhanced head produced. In fact, it even creates a perception of greater carbonation because of the appearance. This fashion was taken to extreme in some areas of northern England where a specially designed hand pump called a recirculator not only incorporated a tight sparkler but poured beer into a trough to be repoured a number of times before entering the glass. Shown in Figure 4, this destroyer of carbonation created a magnificent head but gave a very limited sparkle to your pint."

Note that Brewlab was started in London and this sure seems like southern prejudice against northern sparkler use.

 

Honestly, I care less about sparkler vs. no sparkler and more about a properly taken care of cask vs. not. This includes a cask that might be prepared correctly, but then experiences the terrible sin of being left on until it's kicked, rather than taking it off after 3-4 days pass.

This is even if places have cask at all...that being said, this whole conversation is very interesting to me.

 

Thanks for providing that link to the Zymurgy article. It has been over 5 years since I read that article so a re-read was in order. I did not recall that a sparkler resulted in such a large level of carbonation reduction: “…adding a sparkler to the beer reduced the carbonation by a whole 41 percent…”.

Earlier in this thread I made the following posts:

“The alleged advantage of using a sparkler is that it creates a ‘better’ head to the beer. I have had a few US brewery beers served using a sparkler and it seems to me the downside is that the sparkler ‘knocks out’ what limited CO2 is in the beer resulting in an even lower carbonated beer in the glass.

From my time drinking cask ale in Great Britain, I have a preference for drinking cask ales without a sparkler in place.”

And:

“Maybe the brewers of Northern England use a bit more carbonation for their cask beers to 'compensate' for the sparkler delivery?”

Do you have any knowledge (or an opinion) concerning my question above? Do you think the beers served during your visit to Yorkshire were carbonated at a high(er) level such that after the 41% reduction caused by the sparkler the beers were still sufficiently carbonated within the glass for an enjoyable drink (e.g., 1.5 – 2 g/L)?

Cheers!

 

Seems reasonable. I found most of the beers very drinkable. I quoted from Cellarmanship that the beers "drink smoother" and I agree with that. They didn't seem flat. A London pour with no head is less drinkable to me.