Cask Vs. Keg

Though according to Adnams the bottled version came first and the cask beer of the same name was made weaker because 6.3% was just much too strong for cask.

 

marquis has a point. The skill and timing for perfection is everything. As is the cellar and serving temperature.

 

I was simply comparing them to their bottled equivalents, they often have more water in them!
I don't find any problem with beers designed to be drunk as opposed to sipped being watery.Beer only exists because it was a safe alternative to water.

I remember that. They were discussing what to call the new beer and the chairman said "Gentlemen, the name will be Broadside" and that ended the discussion.
Regarding the strength, you don't sell much beer of that strength in the pub.Ideally you get people to drink lots and lots of the session stuff, customers will be there for hours and buy nibbles, tobacco and so on while they are there.

 

By watery I don't mean weak and insipid. I mean it tastes more natural and you get more of a feel for its constituent parts, 95%+ of it being water, if that makes any sense. Kind of a bit like the difference between live music and recorded music.

 

I have had cask beers in many places.

The first time I had Two Hearted was on cask at the Eccentric Cafe. That was wonderful. Torpedo on cask would probably be good at the SN Taproom. Some random bar would be a crapshoot.

In England I like the cask beers. Some pubs will have a stack of firkins, pins, and the occasional kilderkin outside waiting to be picked up. Those are usually metal, with a few plastic ones these days.

In Germany they often serve from wooden barrels via gravity. I don't remember any oak notes in those beers, as the casks are probably lined with brewer's pitch.

 

Don't worry about it not everyone thinks cask is better. I enjoy beers on cask but I find them less refreshing than beers on tap. It sounds like you might also.

 

Anyone ever competed in Sweetwaters Brew Your Cask Off? I had a friend who did it this year and he said brewing in a cask is the hardest thing he's tried beer wise and that the finished product was flat and not very good.

 

Style and timing makes a huge difference. Surly Furious on Cask = much less enjoyable than even a semi-fresh can. Fitger's Java Big Boat Oatmeal Stout on cask = one of the best beers I've ever had.

 

Curious as to where you had this. I say this because cask done right is usually a wonderful thing. That being said, America has not quite mastered the process like our brothers on the other side of the pond.

 

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, cask ale. It is what beer is all about. For me it is kind of the pinnacle of beer/ales greatness.
As a good number of folks have said, it almost doesn't matter how well the ale in the cask was made. If it isn't prepared and served properly than it quickly leads to a sub par experience. Some styles are also better suited to cask conditioning. One of my faves is Victory Headwaters Pale. A lot of high gravity stuff isn't the best fit for cask, but had Victory Hop Ranch IPA as cask once at a beer class. It was pretty stellar for a casked DIPA. I have never been lucky enough to travel to Britain to see how a real "old hand" at cask ale does it, but I feel I have had enough good and bad experiences with cask to have a say.
If anyone here on BA ever visits Charlotte, NC you should definitely do yourself a favor and hit up Growler's Pour House in NoDa Arts Disctrict. Not only is the food pretty baller, but they usually have two cask ales on at all times. And most importantly they know how to do it right. And it's always on the Best Bar lists.(For what it's worth)

 

Casks are a labor of love for a brewery. With such a limited window of opportunity on an oxygen-exposed cask, the beer is going to evolve quickly then begin to decline to vinegar/soy sauce after that. Very little profit in it for a brewery which makes a fresh cask ale all the more special (and expensive) in a tasting room. If you can catch the cask within 3 days of tapping, it should be a great beer.

With kegging blanketing the beer in CO2, it can keep and store a lot longer. For beers that are destined for distribution, kegging is the only profitable choice.

 

TO add to what all these folks said, Cask is a different beast from keg, or bottle - think of it as a third way to deliver. IT takes a lot of training and practice to be able to handle and serve cask ale (cask beer) correctly.
If it's not done right, then it does become the "warm and flat" that some people deride cask as.
It's not supposed to be either, or not in absolute terms. It is warmer and flatter than force-carbed, ice-cold kegs, but it should be cellar temp, about 55*F (at serving) and it's naturally carbed, so it won't have the huge heads of standard draft pulls.
Some styles don't do as well in cask, from my experience, but others are by far the best that way.
For further information, check out the CAMRA website or NERAX - Great Britain and New England cask beer organizations respectively. NERAX puts on festivals a few times a year in Boston and points north - the next one is the end of March, I believe. Those guys know how to put on a festival and are expert at handling and serving the beers.

 

LOVE cask Ale! IPAs on-cask may not highlight the hops, but the mouthfeel is incredible. I had a Lagunitas IPA on-cask last weekend and it was amazingly drinkable, almost refreshing.

 

I grabbed your quote quickly, but there's a few others on here commenting on IPAs on cask not being up to par, including the original post. From my experience (which is extensive) here in the US, it's a crapshoot when you're having cask. Many bars use it as a gimmick without knowing how to properly handle it. I've had far too many pints of cask that were a complete mess to take a flyer on cask at a random bar in the US anymore. Given that, I wouldn't judge Torpedo, Nugget Nectar...etc. that have been mentioned in this thread based on US cask.

These days I stick to the few bars I know of that know how to handle cask, and of course NERAX. If you ever get the chance to go to a NERAX event in the US you'll learn what proper cask is, and what a beautiful thing it is. At last year's event I had Smuttynose's Big A IPA (their double IPA) and it was absolutely fantastic. And this was at 9% abv. Wasn't my favorite (I love session ales), but it was still amazing.

 

I'd love to have a tasty Mild or ESB on Cask, there's a brew pub here that specializes in real British style ales, and they are tremendously flavorful, their mild is right at 3.8% ABV and is terrific. No idea if it's cask or not I suspect not, but I'll check it out next time there it's just a far ride.

 

I absolutely love certain beer styles on cask: Bitter Ale, Mild, some Stouts & Porters.

I have had many hoppy beers (e.g., IPAs) on cask and that beer style is not properly served by cask delivery. The lower carbonation level ‘dumbs down’ the hops presence (which is a hallmark of an American style IPA).
Just like @pitweasel reported, Nugget Nectar is ‘affected’ by cask delivery. A few years ago I was at a local bar that had Nugget Nectar on cask and regular draft so I ordered both to do a side by side tasting. The regular draft was superior (to my palate) since the hops flavor/aroma was vibrant and prominent; the cask Nugget Nectar was muted. Having Nugget Nectar on cask is a ‘worthy’ drink but I much prefer it on draft/bottle.

Cheers!

 

I've had Two Hearted on cask and it muted the hoppiness.
I also had Dragon's Milk on cask and thought the same thing about all the flavors of DM ingeneral.
I personally don't see the upside except for the romantinc "old world" syle.
Maybe I haven't had it done right but from my experience.......bleh. I'll pass.

 

I don't want people to get the idea that cask beer is a quickly perishable item. It keeps very well for a long time before tapping; it's once it has been started that the clock begins ticking.

 

Any one in the states who has had Fullers beer on draft or bottles hasn't really had a proper or real pint of their beer. I could drink that London Pride or Chiswick Bitter on cask all damn day or at least until sleepy!

Near-by McNellies in downtown Tulsa usually keeps a nice pint of Marshalls (mostly) on cask. The Big Jamoke Porter & Pub Ale are top notch.

 

Everything I have ever had on cask has been excellent and, if it were a beer that I had previously had from a keg, it was always more enjoyable. Granted, I've probably only had a dozen cask beers, so take that into account.

Long story short, I'd like to try every beer on cask (with some exceptions of course, Bud Light on cask = Yikes). I'd especially love to try Torpedo on cask.