Cask beer is the ultimate craft beer

You have to look for cask specifically -- it's a rare sight. Portland and Seattle have cask available. Visiting Portland in the past, Bridgeport always had cask (my favorite ever cask was a stout there). Deschutes in Portland had cask several years ago. Here's a recent article:
https://www.beervanablog.com/beerva...is-now-officially-a-thing-in-portland-oregon/
Machine House in Seattle lists 8 (!) of their cask beers on tap now.
Here in my NY state area, we are a cask desert now. In the old days, a few bars had a cask, and Blue Point always offered cask at the brewery. My favorite NYC cask outlet closed down. I visited the new Blue Point brewery during the AB era and it had a cask offering. They don't list any these days.

 

Hogshead in Denver was a favorite.

 

On our trip to the Eastern Shore this summer, we hit both the DFH brewery and original (rebuilt) Brewings and Eats and they had a cask on at each location. On this trip, they were different beers, and I enjoyed them both, though the ordinary bitter on at the original location was my favorite. I was very happy they were offering stuff on cask.

 

My understanding is that when keg was first introduced in the 50s or60s in England, it was more expensive than cask because pubs had to invest in a C02 system. Apparently that price structure is still in place and cask is the cheapest option. In the US, cask has been the same price or more in my experience. Macleods in Van Nuys Ca. said that they started as a cask only brewery because they couldn’t afford a C02 system right away.

 

Did you (or anyone else) ever have cask in the US in the pre-craft era.?

 

I see what I had done which caused me to think kegs are available. In the link above I had switched it to "List" and it came up with a list of 9 pubs. https://www.timothytaylor.co.uk/pint-finder?tab=pintfinder-list#

Since there are multiple an explanations on this page from Pete Brown on the difference between keg and cask, I assumed that meant both are available at these places. So the feeling by you and others in this thread that Landlord keg is not likely available is what I'll go with. At least now I'm not restricted to 9 pubs to find Landlord.

 

You should be able to find cask Landlord. Regarding keg, I didn’t want you to chase something you couldn’t get and then become disappointed. Where are you staying?

 

I never saw it, but there might have been some around, especially on the East Coast. I worked with a guy who grew up in New Jersey in the 50s. His father took him to his local in the early to mid 50s when he was maybe 12. There was a small keg perched on the bar that was probably gravity fed. It could well have been filtered, but possiby some vestige of cask? My wife and I saw a similar setup some years ago. We had a craft cask dark mild at Jimmy's 43 in NYC. The keg (old 1/4 barrel) was perched on the bar, gravity fed. Jimmy's was pretty chilly that night so the beer temperature was about right.

 

Yeah, as @moodenba notes above, there are stories (and some ads*) that suggest rare examples of post-Repeal beers in the US being gravity-poured direct from (usually wooden) kegs but I doubt many of those beers underwent secondary fermentation in the keg, necessary to be able to consider it "real ale/cask ale" by the common UK (CAMRA) definition.

Of course, the latter was once the primary aspect of one industry definition of Steam Beer:

One story, told by an anonymous Ballantine employee (hired 2 decades later), says the original post-Repeal batch of Ballantine Burton Ale was supposed to be a small-kegged, flat ale, that would be added to another beer for an extra cost.

Neuweiler's Stock Ale, mid-30s, was advertised as being "tapped direct from the wood...direct from the wooden keg". By the 1960s, it was a bottled, winter seasonal.

The small kegs, sixtels and eightels (3 7/8 gallons), both wooden and aluminum, sold primarily to consumers for home use were often gravity-poured, though later some apparently used picnic-type taps (air) and CO2 canisters.

* There was a keg brand called Kooler-Keg (1930s-1950s), that had internal coils for cold water which keep the beer cold - apparently sold as being superior and more sanitary to the draught beer some bars still served through what essentially were "jockey boxes" - in which the beer went from the keg through coils surrounded by cold water. More sanitary because the Kooler-Keg internal coils were cleaned by the brewery during their keg cleaning process and the beer did not flow through the coils, only around them. Ads for bars that used the Kooler-Keg system often confusingly used terms like "Direct from the (wooden) keg", but otherwise the beer was likely still "pushed" with CO2 or air.

The US brewing industry has long used air or, since the late 19th century, CO2 (aka "carbonic acid gas") to serve draught beer.

 

Good cask beer is the pinnacle beer experience. Hands down.

Seems like us cask lovers need to keep an eye out for events that focus on and celebrate cask. I highly recommend all cask lovers to check out the New England Real Ale Exhibition (NERAX) in South Boston when it comes around again in April.

Rhode Island did its own version last January (Rhode island’s finest real ale festival or “Rifraf”). It wasn’t as big as NERAX but still a lot of fun for folks into real ale. Keep your eyes peeled for that.

I believe Yard’s does one in Philly too, though I’ve not been.

 

On the map it looks like a neighborhood called Paddington. It's a hotel called Lancaster Gate, just north of Kensington Gardens.

 

I hadn't thought about Steam Beer, which did survive after Prohibition. It seems that it was krausened in the keg, and was unfiltered. So far so good. But I think it's likely that bar owners used CO2 overpressure to serve it (?). Fritz Maytag might have provided details at some point.

 

Yeah, most likely by the Maytag era. Pre-Pro, steam beer was noted for being highly carbonated (some claim that aspect was the origin for the "steam" term) and it was "...not necessary to have any air pressure..." to serve it.


Sort of my point - there were US beers served via gravity from kegs (never heard of a US handpump but... who knows?) AND at least one beer style that was noted - defined, actually - for undergoing a secondary in the keg but no known beers that met both criteria, at least after Repeal.

 

You are aware that in Seattle Washington, there is a brewery that does nothing but cask beers? Machine House.

 

Had Berkshire Hoosac Tunnel on cask last night at Magouns.

 

So, 100 YEARS OF BREWING in 1903 wrote that "practically seventy-five per cent of all the beer supplied in wood is preserved and drawn with and under carbonic acid gas pressure" and I guess I always figured by Repeal that percentage would have been nearer to 100% but I have heard stories of bars using an air compressor into the 1970s.

Given that most bars would have been tapping half barrels (though rare, full 31 gallon barrels were still around into the 1980s) seems like using air would have meant an increased possibility of spoiled kegs. OTOH, many bars typically only had a few kegs on at a time (I've got ads where bars boast of having "no less than four beers on tap") and though the typical serving size was not today's (faux) pint of under 16 oz., instead it was usually 6 - 12 oz., the number of beers at one sitting often made up for that, as did the then much more common pitchers of beer.

So, I dug out some old books. The US Brewers' Association's August 1937 A BEER DISPENSING HANDBOOK- For Those Who Handle Draught and Packaged Beer:

It goes on to list Hand Pump Power ("In this day and age of labor saving devices, the hand air pump is infrequently used..."), Electric Pumps and Hydraulic Pumps

DRAUGHT BEER FACTS AND TROUBLE GUIDE by Standard-Keil, maker of the Tap-Rite brand equipment (no date, seems to be from the 1970s - a profit guide for 1/2 barrels lists prices of 6 oz. glasses from 15¢ - 25¢, 12 oz. glasses up to 75¢) gives several examples of problems from bars that still use compressed air.