I couldn’t tell you the price of my hand pumped Heady Topper. It was complimentary as part of the tour. Cheers!
My first cask beer was a limited one-off: Olde Hickory Event Horizon w/ Vanilla. It started my whole beer journey.
A slight gripe of mine is using cask and draught as terms when cask is in the draught family. I find cask ale and stout lovely but sadly Wetherspoons have rationalised here in Ireland which is a shame as they were one of the first to bring it back as a regular option to Ireland, since 1973 when casked Guinness went the way of the dodo. My favourite options are Breton Brewhouse red ale and Breton Brewhouse oatmeal stout 4.5% and 5% respectively.
I'm not familiar with the pubs in that area. TT Landlord isn't a rarity, but if you have trouble finding it, here are two places closer to the center of the city you can try (but be warned that there are many pubs that share the same name and they can even be very close together... and a beer can be a standard at a place, but it might not be always available): If you visit the British Museum, try The Queen's Larder for Landlord, and then on the same block try Swan for cask Old Peculier (which is much harder to come across in London than Landlord). If you visit Ye Olde Cheshier Cheese (a special/odd relic of a pub... currently a Samuel Smith pub), try The George (about a 5 min walk down Fleet St) for Landlord.
First place I ever had a Dark Mild, from cask -- no less, and I was on the bandwagon. And yeah, I think it was a Sam Smith Dark Mild. I don't think our crawl took us to the George, though.
Thanks for those name suggestions. I have Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and The George on my list to visit from research here in the BA forums, so I'll add your others too. I also mapped 5 places from the TT website map that are close to our hotel and will be easy to walk, especially if we experience a rainy day. P.S. That cask Old Peculiar sounds interesting.
Respectfully, cask (real ale) is really in a class all by itself; draught beer has not gone through the same primary/secondary fermentation, conditioning, and is served differently. Same beer, two completely different experiences in appearance, aroma, mouthfeel, and taste compared to draught (force carbonated/conditioned) beer.
Interesting that the Sam Smith Dark Mild ale was casked, thought they only kegged their milds. I still think kegged beer is drawn due to the fact a pump still needs to be pulled down for it to come out.
I had the stout at the closed Waterford pub and the red on the Camden Street pub in Dublin. Both were very tasty. It may seem unusual, but I like the atmosphere in Wetherspoons pubs. My only comment on cask ale is that it would taste better if served a little colder (45-50 F).
The recommended temperature range for cask is 50F–54F so you’re not far off. Unfortunately even many pubs in the UK are serving their cask far too warm. I'm delighted at the love for Landlord on this thread. It sometimes has some diacetyl and/or sulphur so it can be an acquired taste.
In the US, post-Repeal the term "draft/draught beer" legally meant unpasteurized beer, whether from a keg or a bottle* (see ads below). By the mid-1960s, due to "... methods other than pasteurization (for example, sterile filtration and aseptic filling procedures) ... used to assure adequate shelf-life (and) Flash pasteurization (in bulk) permits brewers to pasteurize keg beer as well as bottled or canned beer..." the term "draft/draught beer" had different legal definitions based on the size of the container. https://www.ttb.gov/public-information/industry-circulars/archives/1965/65-01 Even those rules were eliminated in 2020. TTB Bootcamp for Brewers CRAFT BREWERS CONFERENCE ONLINE MAY 2020 * Unpasteurized beer in large, half-gallons called "Picnic bottles" were once common in the mid-West and Northeast, some brewers offered them into the 1960s.
Replying before scrolling down, so sorry if someone else already pointed this out, but it appears that there is a Timothy Taylor pub right around the corner from the front entrance to your hotel--google maps says 1 minute walk. It's the Leinster Arms, 17 Leinster Terrace, Bayswater W2 3EU. Turn right leaving the hotel then right again at the corner of Lancaster Gate and Leinster Terrace, and it's on your right at the corner of Leinster Terrace and Craven Hill Gardens. You don't even have to cross a street.
Too late to edit: And the last Timothy Taylor Landlord I've had was this spring at a pub on the other (south) side of Hyde Park, at a pub called The Queen's Arms, address 30 Queens Gate Mews, SW7 5QL to help you locate it on google map. (GoogleMap says a 23 minute walk straight thru the park). Surely you'll be taking a walk through Hyde Park at some point so this is not too far from the Albert Memorial, also the Natural History Museum or the Victoria and Albert Museum. I don't think either this one or the one I mentioned before are Timothy Taylor OWNED pubs, but Landlord is cited as being frequently served at each.
Chances are they no longer cask their milds. Does not look like it in any of their pubs (if they are even open).
10-14 degrees Celsius is fairly cold when you consider it is cold enough to give you cold water shock if you fall in. Brehon Brewhouse red ale likewise has a bit of diacetyl but it is a crystal malt dominated but still very well balanced mild ale. The legal definitions of draught/draft beer where you are, is quite fascinating. As for large bottles, there used to be Guinness quart (2 imperial pints) bottles.
