I had a cask Kellerbier a couple months back from Rigg & Furrow that confused and delighted me to no end. Always been a fan of NEIPA on cask though, Brolly Brewing in Sussex has been pushing it since 2017 superbly.
I'm from the US and have not had a cask ale yet. I have not chased one down yet; I am going to be in London next summer and am wanting my first one to be at Southampton Arms based on your recommendations.
As a german craftbrewer, i have to say, that i really love real cask ale. Also many people in my Country Think that cask ale is just a flat and warm beer from britain. I really enjoy your Videos about the cask ale. They are great and make me thirsty😅. Cant wait to come back to britain and enjoy a cask ale in a pub. Keep on rockin guys. Cheers and thank you from cologne/germany 🍻
@@markkeneson6806 oh fair comment and good knowledge. I lived in Stuttgart for a while so I'm more familiar with the Bavarian styles like bocks, rauchbier, dunkel, weissbier, helles and various lagers etc.
The past weekend I was in 'The Hole In The Wall', one best craft beer pubs in Portsmouth. I had a pint on cask of their single hopped 'Mosaic Session Pale' from Urban Island Brewing Co, it's usually on keg/in can and on cask it was a level up. Can't wait to get back there this weekend for another (or 5). Cheers!
You have 100% accomplished your goal at preserving cask ale tradition. Not just in your own country but here in the United States. Just from watching your channel I have a new found Love in Cask ale. 👍☺️
I really enjoyed this! Your videos are head and shoulders above other beer channels, at least in the UK. Great pub the evening star- will try their new beer when I next see it. As you went to Sheffield, I'm curious- did you notice a difference between how cask is served down south ? I'm from Bradford but live in London. When I'm back home I much prefer the beers- Deception is one I drink a lot of at Jacobs Ale House, Bradford.... As they're pulled through a sparkler, the body is just so much better, smoother ..
Loving this series. I was introduced to cask ale in the 90s as a late teen on a trip to England. I fell in love with it. Thankfully in my area of the NE US, I can get cask ales here and there, but it is nothing ubiquitous like being in the UK. After my second trip to England in 2019 I came home and set up a cask system at my house. I have a few pin casks, a beer engine, properly controlled cellar temps, and a CO2 breather system for extending the life of the beer beyond a few days. Although when friends are over I just run with a traditional soft spile for serving. I do several clones of my favorite UK ales that turn out very well. My property has a water profile that's right on for traditional bitters. Thanks to Paul Pendyck of the Bull's Head Pub in Litiz, PA for starting UK Brewing Supplies. Without his importing it would be difficult to access affordable cask equipment.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel A few regular clones I do include Cotleigh Barn Owl, Coniston Bluebird, Hook Norton's Hooky, Courage Director's, Landlord, and Tribute. Basically the ones I really like that I cannot get here (or easily). I've also found, like your series brilliantly points out, that modern hop forward styles, like NEIPAs, DDH and SMASH pale ales do really well in cask. I enjoy seeing how a sparkler does and doesn't work for different styles as well.
This series is making me seriously consider buying a pin or firkin to stick on the bar. A hazy IPA would definitely be its first resident, but I have a regular Brit Golden and Brown that would work as well!
Really looking forward to trying my first cask ale soon! I was able to find one or two pubs serving it in Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks for the well done series and opening my eyes to cask.
I'm in a cask desert in Arbroath, seriously tempted to get brewing myself an oasis. Seriously 25 pubs in such a small town, 2 serve cask apparently although I've yet to see them. Almost no craft beer at all on the bars.
Best brewery tour ever was at Dark Star "I know you arent here to hear me describe brewing, you want the beer! We have 5 jugs here. Fill up when you are empty. When the jug is empty let us know and we will refill it" But it was still an awsome stand still tour.
Those are the best kind of tours. We had that at Skinner's Brewery in Cornwall, and also in the (new) Truman's Brewery in Hackney. At Truman's, he literally let us loose at the kegs ourselves, and we drank so much we started mixing beers and coming up with combinations. It was amazing, but I don't remember much!
Thanks Guys, both Abbedale and Dark Star are doing great work by the looks, and head brewer Henry is obviously very passionate, you can tell by the way he talks with his hands!! That's what brewing needs to change minds and push boundaries! Wicked, I need to find some casks for our brewery here in NZ! Cheers Fellas, Mike.
Had my first pint of Abbeydale beer on cask in The Cricketers Arms in Horbury earlier this year. Lockdown had just lifted and I'd met up with 2 friends for a weekend of catch up and home brewing. It was an absolutely stunning pint of Deception and it is second only this year to the pint of Bread and Butter from Vocation I had earlier that week in its magnificence.
There's a few breweries doing cask ale in the US and i really wish more played with the style. Zebulon did a cask sour that was incredible, pale ales and hazys are nice and pillowy soft. I just wish they weren't so expensive to set up on the homebrew scale.
Thank you for this series. Your first videos on cask beers from a few years ago helped open my eyes to the beauty of cask beer. Unfortunately I live in the US and cask beer is almost non-existent here. The good news is I live in Michigan so there's a lot to keep me busy and happy until I run across some cask in my travels. If you are ever near Grand Rapids, MI let me know, I'll be happy to buy you a pint or two!
Great series guys, we really need to get this message out to the young. This is our brewing culture and apart from pockets elsewhere, which we have directly influenced, if it starts to die off here it is effectively gone. I am 50 and have drunk cask all my life from obviously too many great breweries to count, some of which are already gone. In some ways this a repeat of the CAMRA fight of the early seventies but where as that was a battle against a patently inferior product this not as new keg beers are themselves an excellent well crafted product. We just have to continue to find space for both on bars, but we must not lose cask!
the best beer i ever had was Fullers ESB on cask in the Catherine Wheel somewhere around Kensington 30-ish years ago. i have come close with my homebrew pale ale and fresh EKG's served out of a corny keg but hard to get the balance right because properly cellared fresh ESB is as close to perfect as you could get.
The only problem with these type of beers in cask will be the shelf life due to oxidation. They are going to have to be consumed uber fresh and I don't think most pubs will be down to deal with these issues sadly.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel unfortunately though beers such as Neipas show in the appearance very quickly.... maybe a dose of ascorbic acid may help mitigate it?? 🤔
Cask was doing well, more choice, better beers and improved quality (not by Fullers) Then decline was caused by LOCKDOWN as people could not go to the pub and had to drink cans etc Why keep focusing on this American stuff? When we have so many good UK products and style
I can assure you cask was in severe decline long before lockdown (it declined in sales by £200m in 2019, or around 8%) and surveys of quality have shown that most cask in the UK is served at over 12C. We have timed this series to help cask pick things up after COVID but even without it, it would be struggling. We dont keep focusing on American styles with cask - this is the first time we have mentioned it in this series and even then half of our time was spent talking about saison! We have to be open minded and accept what drinkers look for in cask ale these days.
Loving this series guys! Love the accompanying music too! Just want to say that on the -ve side, the volume of people's voices does seem to fluctuate a fair bit. Sound level issue perhaps?
What about using sparklers? Where do you stand on that? Being a geordie, I've not really had any experience of cask in the South (i.e. without a sparkler). That NEIPA looked great mind.
We talked about this at length in our podcast (The Bubble) but we think it's slightly style dependent, and also sparklers can sure save a badly conditioned pint of cask. But when done right there's no need for one - like that pint in the intro has a beautiful creamy and full head without one!
I'm gonna have to get the US on board with cask because you guys are killing me....so jealous!!! I'm both loving and hating this series🤣. Only hating the fact that I can't get the cask beer...I will definitely be talking cask up at breweries I go to. And cask has definitely moved way up on my bucket list. Great series and kudos for making it! 👏 🍻
I want Mild Comeback too! There is a couple New England Breweries that will turn out a Mild once in a while, but they tend to push up the ABV to 4% to 5%. I want a 3% Mild for a weekday beer.
I think I would probably say Northern Monk x Siren Black IPA with coconut and pineapple. Not the kind of thing I ever expected to see on cask (and I think they only filled up two of them). One thing I wish more people knew (drinkers and, seemingly, brewers alike) is that big, thick imperial stouts are absolutely phenomenal on cask. I can think of two which underwhelmed me on keg, but were completely different beers on cask in terms of body and flavour presentation. It's the kind of thing I'd love to see more of, but I dunno whether the difficult economics of cask are even harder with a 10%+ beer.
Living in the US, are there any ways I could seek out cask? I’ve only gotten lucky and found it a few times at some breweries. I know Forest and Main (which isn’t too far from me) specializes in it, but they have unfortunately been pickup only since the pandemic began. (Hoping to get there again soon though!)
You're already in situation to save something that's just coming into our country. Maybe you should come to Serbia and do a couple of episodes, you will be surprised how late we are, but it will be living craft pioneer steps once again. Lucky you!
Really enjoying this series. I think the NEIPA in cask sounds incredible- but what about the oxidation issues with super hoppy beers? How can that work with a style like NEIPA? Is it just a case of Very short lifespan or some other magic?
So cask has a shelve life of up to 3 days once it's being poured, but with this Henry said he'd want it gone in 24 hours. There are things like ascorbic acid you can also add in to slow that effect
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Not really the kind of scene I normally populate, but marketing tapping one of these like a new can 'drop' could work for busy/trendy places. Push it as a premium product, and as a bit of an event. Unity, in Southampton experimented with it, they did a one of cask beer just in the city that everyone tapped on the same day. Not sure how well it went, and it's not their usual style of beer but the concept is sound .
Great video again! One thing that annoys with beer in pubs is the glasses, straight sided glasses just shouldn't be a thing now I want nose! Also I think the half and pint are an outdated measure, a pint is often to much and a beer is flat and done by the end and a half is a tad small 330 and 440 in the cans are great sizes..
Really interested to see how they limit oxidation when filling the cask, it seems to be a fairly open process so is it just the short lifespan in the cask that ensures a fresh NEIPA?
@@TheCraftBeerChannel so there must be added extra sugar to that cask so fermentation could continue, I heard they put a bit of fructose so the beer would be fresh even after a couple of months!?!?
@@geoguru81 Not extra sugar in most cases - it's usually packaged before fermentation finishes so there are a few points left to carb up and scrub the oxygen.
Feeling a little guilty after just dropping cask from my bar. We were really struggling to even sell pins within 3-5 days and throwing away beer most weeks. Such a shame but at least I have another keg line! Even the old boys have been choosing the £6-7 NEIPA on keg over the £3-4 cask ale.
No shame in that. Pubs and breweries need to do what helps them survive, especially right now. Maybe try bag in box serves or the odd events around cask to make it feel special for now
@ craft beer channel...I like the idea of continuing the traditions of cask ale. I enjoyed the cask ales very much when I lived in England during my time in the USAF. I do wonder if associations such as CAMRA might loosen up a bit on what qualifies as equipment for cask ales to make the management of casks less labor intensive. For example how about using pressure regulated blow off valves with gauges rather than soft spiles.
Thanks for a great series on cask ale. Can't help wondering tho how NEIPA could be served in a cask considering how easily it gets oxidised, surely after a couple of days it would be ruined
Cask is ruined after a couple of days either way. NEIPA in cask is a little more vulnerable, still. This cask went in 48 hours and there were no issues
Great series and love the music. I think a concern with a cask Neipa is oxidisation, the shelf life would be even less than regular cask. Every neipa I’ve homebrewed and didn’t keg went brown :(
Well it is a little easier for breweries to get dissolved oxygen low and also in larger volume containers the effect is lower. But yes this beer has 24 hours or so and that's it....
Hi Jonny, as someone who gets the luxury of buying , preparing and selling cask to our customers, I can truly say its such a mixed bag, there are some incredible breweries out there in the UK producing very much NE style pales and IPAs which are banging on cask. We are fortunate to get some one off specials on cask from some pretty well known breweries which have shown that it is truly a format for any style! A lot of people are put off by price on cask but for the right beer that isnt a problem. Would love to talk more
With the obsession with freshness these days too, if NEIPAs were served from cask, by definition, it kind of needs to be fresh! So you're always guaranteed that freshness - which I think is a cool benefit
My experience of making saison for cask is that they tend to have that bubbly effervescence just from the yeast. The yeast we use has the ability to utilise almost all the sugars in the wort. You end up with a final gravity in the cask of around 1.002 (although it's not noticeably thin). It does mean the cask is bloody lively though. Of course once tapped it will die off after a day but the flavour is still good.
I need more information on this! I want to see what the process is. Don't need a strain, but if it's an Ale yeast, Lager, or Kveik. My guess is probably London Fog? Guessing they put it in the cask before it's fully dried out so it scrubs the oxygen in the cask and introduced in the transfer? This suggests early hopping schedule and no cold crash? Do they use a float in the cask? No SMB, ascorbic acid, or other antioxidant added? Was it tapped that day? Do we know how long it lasts before it starts with the darkening and other oxidative issues? Do they use a CO2 Aspirator breather valve?
Hey Leo - this was a story for drinkers not homebrewers, but some very good questions there. It was an ale yeast, cold crashed then transferred a few points of the FG to allow for refermentation at a slightly warmer temp afterwards. I believe it was vented the day before and tapped that day, and nothing was added to prevent oxidation so I presume it would have turned within 48 hours - which is why this was filmed on a Thursday so it was busy as it gets (Thursday is the new Friday). Not sure on the breather valve, sorry!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Thank you for the info! It is massively appreciated. Excellent content as always. Appreciate the advantages of broad appeal. I'm just fascinated by a good NEIPA served from a cask.
So, so good. Really enjoying it. I wish it were a 24 part series. Actually I wish i was there right now having one. The one thing that was killing me was the mic on the lapel OF THE VEST? He had a blue oxford on! I wanted to be able to hear him.
Great series! And thanks Fullers for funding it. I was worried Fullers might change following their buyout a few years back, but in fact their beer is as good as it's ever been, and the pubs are even better than before lockdown. Long may that continue!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel I wonder why they don't have Urquell at their pubs as they share Asahi as their owner. Also Pentrich makes some great NE style cask
So cask beer being virtually non existent in Eastern Canada, how does secondary fermentation in the cask differ as far as mouth feel vs a kegged beer? I envision it as something similar to a beer on nitro, but maybe it is somewhere in between keg (CO2) and keg (Nitro). I think I have had one cask beer in my time, and while it was at a pretty good beer bar, their explanation of a "cask beer" was that it wasn't chilled, and the cask just sat on the bar in ambient temperature (clearly that is wrong). When going about making a cask beer, is it as simple as the beer goes from the primary fementer, into the cask (the secondary fermenter), and whatever yeast is still in the beer is what makes the CO2 in the cask? Or do that add more yeast to the cask? Could this not be done in a traditional keg home brew set up? Secondary fermentation in the keg? I realize it is manually pumped from the cask, but instead of a pump to dispense the beer, could you not just use just enough serving pressure from a CO2 canister to dispense? Sorry for the question, cask newbie, only because it just doesn't exist here, save for one local brewery that has a cask night one night a week, but it is usually just a core beer, that they have put in a cask, with something extra (core stout with cold brew coffee and/or cocoa nibs added, or core Belgian IPA with some sort of fruit added), and it isn't pumped into the glass, the cask is just on the bar back, with a tap and gravity fed into the glass. Not sure if it is actually secondary fermented in the cask, and not just the cask filled from their brite tank, already with CO2 in it.
@@andyleighton3616 Sure, but not when they just take a core beer out of the brite tank (same as they would do for a normal keg), put it in a cask with a few extras, slap it up on the counter and call it a "cask"
I'm the head brewer of a small brewery in Yorkshire. Half my family lives in Canada (Edmonton although they're moving to to BC) so I go to Canada every year at least once. I've had cask beer over there several times and have never had a good one. The lower carbonation of cask does give a different mouth feel that is somewhat akin to nitro but yes you are right, the end result is somewhere in between. Essentially it is that simple. Once your beer has reached the desired abv you chill it down to drop out the yeast, add auxiliary/adjunct finings and let settle for a few days. Then transfer to your casks. No extra yeast is needed in this instance. If you want a clear beer you may want to add cask finings (although you can get clear cask beer without if you want).Then let your cask condition for 2 weeks at around 12'C. If you were to try the same method in a keg you would get something similar but when it comes to cask dispense is vitally important. With a proper cask you would let the cask breathe through a semi porous wooden spyle for 24 hours before serving. This allows the cask maturation to complete its process. As for drinking cask straight from it gravity fed, that is totally acceptable and is the old style. However it ideally should be temp controlled.
@@T-1001 Yeah, there is only one locally that does a cask night once a week. I don't believe they are secondary fermenting them in the cask, just filling them off the brite tank same as they would for a normal keg, so the beer is already carbonated, and then adding something extra to them to make them different. Gravity feed, room temp when they are served
People expressed similar sentiments about American hopped beer on cask 15 years ago. The fact is, cask ales future is reliant on diversity of drinkers and diversity of styles being poured. If you don't like that style, no problem. But it will help protect the styles you do.
Very much about dropping that stigma of cask, but difficult when it’s sold as this old U.K. traditional beer format. Find the sweet spot of marketing it.
Dark Star Hophead was a fine beer until it was taken over by some Japanese outfit. It then went downhill dramatically until, at last they realised their absurd mistake and started brewing it again at the Dark Star Brewery. The original Brewer, Mark Tranter brews a splendid beer called Burning Sky . You can get it round the corner from the Evening Star in the Prince Albert, Trafalgar Street .Have a go at Kent Brewery Prohibition if you get the chance. One of the best real ale pubs in that part of the world is the Crown in Eastbourne , or the Hurst Arms for a great range of Harvey`s
I think Hophead struggled long before Asahi came in - but it is now tasting great again. We have done a few vids at Burning Sky and they are in my new book!
Stop this idea that we need a story of beer, or any product all we need to do is talk to the people who make it; we don't need a story that's marketing bullshit
So tell us beer geeks - what's the most unusual beer you've ever had on cask?
I had a cask Kellerbier a couple months back from Rigg & Furrow that confused and delighted me to no end. Always been a fan of NEIPA on cask though, Brolly Brewing in Sussex has been pushing it since 2017 superbly.
I’ve had jong Girardin on cask once.
Not unusual really but Five Points XPA was the first American (and Australian) hopped pale I ever had on cask. Delicious.
Remember having a Harvey’s Best when I was down in Lewes a couple years back, phenomenal
I'm from the US and have not had a cask ale yet. I have not chased one down yet; I am going to be in London next summer and am wanting my first one to be at Southampton Arms based on your recommendations.
As a german craftbrewer, i have to say, that i really love real cask ale. Also many people in my Country Think that cask ale is just a flat and warm beer from britain. I really enjoy your Videos about the cask ale. They are great and make me thirsty😅. Cant wait to come back to britain and enjoy a cask ale in a pub. Keep on rockin guys. Cheers and thank you from cologne/germany 🍻
This is high praise from a German beer lover 🍺
@@certaindeaf8632, yes it is. Kölsch beer is delicious.
@@markkeneson6806 indeed. I mean, there are a few other styles than kölsch alone but sure, lovely stuff.
@@certaindeaf8632, I referenced Kölsch because Julian Baum is from Cologne, the home of Kölsch.
@@markkeneson6806 oh fair comment and good knowledge. I lived in Stuttgart for a while so I'm more familiar with the Bavarian styles like bocks, rauchbier, dunkel, weissbier, helles and various lagers etc.
Loved Henry’s enthusiasm for cask! Great series guys, will be keeping an eye on what’s on cask going forward!
The past weekend I was in 'The Hole In The Wall', one best craft beer pubs in Portsmouth. I had a pint on cask of their single hopped 'Mosaic Session Pale' from Urban Island Brewing Co, it's usually on keg/in can and on cask it was a level up. Can't wait to get back there this weekend for another (or 5). Cheers!
Jürgen Klopp brewing in his spare time there, ladies and gentlemen 👏🏼
First! I need to try some cask ale!
You have 100% accomplished your goal at preserving cask ale tradition. Not just in your own country but here in the United States. Just from watching your channel I have a new found Love in Cask ale. 👍☺️
I really enjoyed this! Your videos are head and shoulders above other beer channels, at least in the UK. Great pub the evening star- will try their new beer when I next see it.
As you went to Sheffield, I'm curious- did you notice a difference between how cask is served down south ? I'm from Bradford but live in London. When I'm back home I much prefer the beers- Deception is one I drink a lot of at Jacobs Ale House, Bradford....
As they're pulled through a sparkler, the body is just so much better, smoother ..
This has been a great series. Well done guys.
Loving this series. I was introduced to cask ale in the 90s as a late teen on a trip to England. I fell in love with it. Thankfully in my area of the NE US, I can get cask ales here and there, but it is nothing ubiquitous like being in the UK. After my second trip to England in 2019 I came home and set up a cask system at my house. I have a few pin casks, a beer engine, properly controlled cellar temps, and a CO2 breather system for extending the life of the beer beyond a few days. Although when friends are over I just run with a traditional soft spile for serving. I do several clones of my favorite UK ales that turn out very well. My property has a water profile that's right on for traditional bitters. Thanks to Paul Pendyck of the Bull's Head Pub in Litiz, PA for starting UK Brewing Supplies. Without his importing it would be difficult to access affordable cask equipment.
Sounds like you've got life all figured out! Which UK ales do you clone?
@@TheCraftBeerChannel A few regular clones I do include Cotleigh Barn Owl, Coniston Bluebird, Hook Norton's Hooky, Courage Director's, Landlord, and Tribute. Basically the ones I really like that I cannot get here (or easily). I've also found, like your series brilliantly points out, that modern hop forward styles, like NEIPAs, DDH and SMASH pale ales do really well in cask. I enjoy seeing how a sparkler does and doesn't work for different styles as well.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Kellem Island Brewery has closed
Sounds interesting. What is a sparkler.
This series is making me seriously consider buying a pin or firkin to stick on the bar. A hazy IPA would definitely be its first resident, but I have a regular Brit Golden and Brown that would work as well!
Really looking forward to trying my first cask ale soon! I was able to find one or two pubs serving it in Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks for the well done series and opening my eyes to cask.
You sir are in for a treat! Cask is king!
Grumpy Troll used to regularly have a cask ale on tap. Swan neck pull, the whole works. It's been a few years since I've visited though.
@@AdamRossD looking at their menu I don't see cask mentioned but I may give them a call to see! Thanks for the heads up.
@@solidsloth14 Comment back what you find out. I'll be up that way in a couple weeks.
@@AdamRossD I got an answering machine and left a message but still no reply. Will try again later this week.
I'm in a cask desert in Arbroath, seriously tempted to get brewing myself an oasis.
Seriously 25 pubs in such a small town, 2 serve cask apparently although I've yet to see them. Almost no craft beer at all on the bars.
Loved this and can not wait to get back to the UK and try some of these new Cask Ales. Bring on the sparkler. :-)
Best brewery tour ever was at Dark Star "I know you arent here to hear me describe brewing, you want the beer! We have 5 jugs here. Fill up when you are empty. When the jug is empty let us know and we will refill it" But it was still an awsome stand still tour.
Those are the best kind of tours. We had that at Skinner's Brewery in Cornwall, and also in the (new) Truman's Brewery in Hackney. At Truman's, he literally let us loose at the kegs ourselves, and we drank so much we started mixing beers and coming up with combinations. It was amazing, but I don't remember much!
I didn't know the difference between cask and keg for ages! So glad I've been properly educated now & can appreciate what cask has to offer!
there is only one place that I know of near me in massachutes that has cask ale I have had a couple from there both of them are porters but very good
Thanks Guys, both Abbedale and Dark Star are doing great work by the looks, and head brewer Henry is obviously very passionate, you can tell by the way he talks with his hands!! That's what brewing needs to change minds and push boundaries! Wicked, I need to find some casks for our brewery here in NZ! Cheers Fellas, Mike.
A NZ hop IPA on cask would be absolutely epic!
That intro music really reminds me of Top Gear (in a good way)
Had my first pint of Abbeydale beer on cask in The Cricketers Arms in Horbury earlier this year. Lockdown had just lifted and I'd met up with 2 friends for a weekend of catch up and home brewing. It was an absolutely stunning pint of Deception and it is second only this year to the pint of Bread and Butter from Vocation I had earlier that week in its magnificence.
There's a few breweries doing cask ale in the US and i really wish more played with the style. Zebulon did a cask sour that was incredible, pale ales and hazys are nice and pillowy soft. I just wish they weren't so expensive to set up on the homebrew scale.
Thank you for this series. Your first videos on cask beers from a few years ago helped open my eyes to the beauty of cask beer. Unfortunately I live in the US and cask beer is almost non-existent here. The good news is I live in Michigan so there's a lot to keep me busy and happy until I run across some cask in my travels. If you are ever near Grand Rapids, MI let me know, I'll be happy to buy you a pint or two!
I had a cask pale ale from a craft brewery in Newcastle on Sunday. It was excellent; the best of both worlds.
Henry is such a superstar! More of him please! 😅
Great series guys, we really need to get this message out to the young. This is our brewing culture and apart from pockets elsewhere, which we have directly influenced, if it starts to die off here it is effectively gone. I am 50 and have drunk cask all my life from obviously too many great breweries to count, some of which are already gone. In some ways this a repeat of the CAMRA fight of the early seventies but where as that was a battle against a patently inferior product this not as new keg beers are themselves an excellent well crafted product. We just have to continue to find space for both on bars, but we must not lose cask!
Just booked Sunday lunch at The Fountain! Can't wait! Visiting London this weekend with my wife😊
The lunch was amazing BTW!
the best beer i ever had was Fullers ESB on cask in the Catherine Wheel somewhere around Kensington 30-ish years ago. i have come close with my homebrew pale ale and fresh EKG's served out of a corny keg but hard to get the balance right because properly cellared fresh ESB is as close to perfect as you could get.
Loved the series, I manage a brewery in Canada and im looking to add a cask program!
"Fermenting at 40 degrees was thrilling!" Legend.
The only problem with these type of beers in cask will be the shelf life due to oxidation. They are going to have to be consumed uber fresh and I don't think most pubs will be down to deal with these issues sadly.
Indeed - but that is true of all cask beer really.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel unfortunately though beers such as Neipas show in the appearance very quickly.... maybe a dose of ascorbic acid may help mitigate it?? 🤔
Omg that looks so yummy, how can I wait till Friday 😭
Try some of Phoenix brewery’s wobbly Bob thank me later
Cask was doing well, more choice, better beers and improved quality (not by Fullers) Then decline was caused by LOCKDOWN as people could not go to the pub and had to drink cans etc Why keep focusing on this American stuff? When we have so many good UK products and style
I can assure you cask was in severe decline long before lockdown (it declined in sales by £200m in 2019, or around 8%) and surveys of quality have shown that most cask in the UK is served at over 12C. We have timed this series to help cask pick things up after COVID but even without it, it would be struggling. We dont keep focusing on American styles with cask - this is the first time we have mentioned it in this series and even then half of our time was spent talking about saison! We have to be open minded and accept what drinkers look for in cask ale these days.
Loving this series guys! Love the accompanying music too! Just want to say that on the -ve side, the volume of people's voices does seem to fluctuate a fair bit. Sound level issue perhaps?
I thought the music was very
Wish you were here!!! 🤠
You are right. We had HUGE sound issues that day. Still learning that side of it
Sign me up for a mild on cask. Great video
What about using sparklers? Where do you stand on that? Being a geordie, I've not really had any experience of cask in the South (i.e. without a sparkler). That NEIPA looked great mind.
We talked about this at length in our podcast (The Bubble) but we think it's slightly style dependent, and also sparklers can sure save a badly conditioned pint of cask. But when done right there's no need for one - like that pint in the intro has a beautiful creamy and full head without one!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Don't say that in Yorkshire - you'd never get out alive (lmao).
Up here in Scotland most of our craft beers are cask
I'm gonna have to get the US on board with cask because you guys are killing me....so jealous!!! I'm both loving and hating this series🤣. Only hating the fact that I can't get the cask beer...I will definitely be talking cask up at breweries I go to. And cask has definitely moved way up on my bucket list. Great series and kudos for making it! 👏 🍻
I want Mild Comeback too! There is a couple New England Breweries that will turn out a Mild once in a while, but they tend to push up the ABV to 4% to 5%. I want a 3% Mild for a weekday beer.
cheers up you guys, from another part of the world
I think I would probably say Northern Monk x Siren Black IPA with coconut and pineapple. Not the kind of thing I ever expected to see on cask (and I think they only filled up two of them).
One thing I wish more people knew (drinkers and, seemingly, brewers alike) is that big, thick imperial stouts are absolutely phenomenal on cask. I can think of two which underwhelmed me on keg, but were completely different beers on cask in terms of body and flavour presentation. It's the kind of thing I'd love to see more of, but I dunno whether the difficult economics of cask are even harder with a 10%+ beer.
Two by Two based in Wallsend, Newcastle have been knocking out great hop forward cask IPA's for a few years now. You should hunt them down!
Living in the US, are there any ways I could seek out cask? I’ve only gotten lucky and found it a few times at some breweries. I know Forest and Main (which isn’t too far from me) specializes in it, but they have unfortunately been pickup only since the pandemic began. (Hoping to get there again soon though!)
You're already in situation to save something that's just coming into our country. Maybe you should come to Serbia and do a couple of episodes, you will be surprised how late we are, but it will be living craft pioneer steps once again. Lucky you!
Have Galaxy Haze at LCBF earlier this summer. It was my best of the festival. Phenomenal. #caskinaglass
Really enjoying this series. I think the NEIPA in cask sounds incredible- but what about the oxidation issues with super hoppy beers? How can that work with a style like NEIPA? Is it just a case of Very short lifespan or some other magic?
So cask has a shelve life of up to 3 days once it's being poured, but with this Henry said he'd want it gone in 24 hours. There are things like ascorbic acid you can also add in to slow that effect
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Not really the kind of scene I normally populate, but marketing tapping one of these like a new can 'drop' could work for busy/trendy places. Push it as a premium product, and as a bit of an event. Unity, in Southampton experimented with it, they did a one of cask beer just in the city that everyone tapped on the same day. Not sure how well it went, and it's not their usual style of beer but the concept is sound .
I had a couple of really nice modern cask ales recently, Hybrid Brewings Jar Nektar and Bevvy.
Didn't know Klopp owned a brewery.
i want that CASK NEIPA NOW !!!!
Wish there was anyone around me doing this. But alas...Those 5 gallon pin kegs are starting to look pretty inviting.
Great video again! One thing that annoys with beer in pubs is the glasses, straight sided glasses just shouldn't be a thing now I want nose! Also I think the half and pint are an outdated measure, a pint is often to much and a beer is flat and done by the end and a half is a tad small 330 and 440 in the cans are great sizes..
Fantastic instalment, I want to go for a drink with Emma she seems great!
Another great vid. Dark star are one of my favourite breweries, never been for a visit, think I'll have to now...
Really interested to see how they limit oxidation when filling the cask, it seems to be a fairly open process so is it just the short lifespan in the cask that ensures a fresh NEIPA?
must be, or they lie which I don't think they do
The refermentation in the cask would hopefully deal with much of the oxygen before it really damaged the beer.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel so there must be added extra sugar to that cask so fermentation could continue, I heard they put a bit of fructose so the beer would be fresh even after a couple of months!?!?
@@geoguru81 Not extra sugar in most cases - it's usually packaged before fermentation finishes so there are a few points left to carb up and scrub the oxygen.
Sheffield Legends
Cask beer can add a lot. Been too long since I've been at bars that offer cask on tap like the Great Lost Bear in Portland, Maine.
really shite shirt. 2 thumbs up. Good work.
Darkstar Henry is ace.
The auto-generated captions render "car scales" out of cask ales. 😁
Thanks for uploading this! Watching it as i clean kegs at work!
EKG!!!
Feeling a little guilty after just dropping cask from my bar. We were really struggling to even sell pins within 3-5 days and throwing away beer most weeks. Such a shame but at least I have another keg line!
Even the old boys have been choosing the £6-7 NEIPA on keg over the £3-4 cask ale.
No shame in that. Pubs and breweries need to do what helps them survive, especially right now. Maybe try bag in box serves or the odd events around cask to make it feel special for now
im sold at the intro :)
Hello guys, really loving every episode. Thank you! Do you know if Galaxy Haze is currently on tap at The Evening Star? Cheers 🍻
Afraid we filmed this way back in summer but hopefully it will be back!
@ craft beer channel...I like the idea of continuing the traditions of cask ale. I enjoyed the cask ales very much when I lived in England during my time in the USAF. I do wonder if associations such as CAMRA might loosen up a bit on what qualifies as equipment for cask ales to make the management of casks less labor intensive. For example how about using pressure regulated blow off valves with gauges rather than soft spiles.
I think they can definitely loosen it, so long as the key points of cask ale are maintained - freshness, carbonation and method of serve.
Thanks for a great series on cask ale. Can't help wondering tho how NEIPA could be served in a cask considering how easily it gets oxidised, surely after a couple of days it would be ruined
Cask is ruined after a couple of days either way. NEIPA in cask is a little more vulnerable, still. This cask went in 48 hours and there were no issues
awesome stuff
Great series and love the music. I think a concern with a cask Neipa is oxidisation, the shelf life would be even less than regular cask. Every neipa I’ve homebrewed and didn’t keg went brown :(
Well it is a little easier for breweries to get dissolved oxygen low and also in larger volume containers the effect is lower. But yes this beer has 24 hours or so and that's it....
this looks good
Hi Jonny, as someone who gets the luxury of buying , preparing and selling cask to our customers, I can truly say its such a mixed bag, there are some incredible breweries out there in the UK producing very much NE style pales and IPAs which are banging on cask. We are fortunate to get some one off specials on cask from some pretty well known breweries which have shown that it is truly a format for any style! A lot of people are put off by price on cask but for the right beer that isnt a problem. Would love to talk more
Always open to conversation! Our email is on the about us page, or you can join our Patreon forum full of like minded people
Love that Dark Star Brewer's energy!! Woah!
Dark Star Hophead and Creme Brulee are amazing.
With the obsession with freshness these days too, if NEIPAs were served from cask, by definition, it kind of needs to be fresh! So you're always guaranteed that freshness - which I think is a cool benefit
Pretty much! Though it still needs to be stored right before hand of course
Brilliant show. Also great shirt Emma.
Henry is so enthusiastic that I am excited for cask
In my opinion some of these new hop heavy cask ales are terrible, I much prefer traditional malty XB style bitters
Well I'd say the issue there was the brewing, not the format!
That was very pleasant 👍🍻 #Rasko
A cask Saison!? What is this witchcraft? I'm curious how the bubbly effervescence normally attributed to a Saison is achieved via cask..
Tbh it isn't but that dry, pepperyness is still there and enhanced by the Brett they use. Saison is a very broad church!
My experience of making saison for cask is that they tend to have that bubbly effervescence just from the yeast. The yeast we use has the ability to utilise almost all the sugars in the wort. You end up with a final gravity in the cask of around 1.002 (although it's not noticeably thin). It does mean the cask is bloody lively though. Of course once tapped it will die off after a day but the flavour is still good.
I need more information on this! I want to see what the process is. Don't need a strain, but if it's an Ale yeast, Lager, or Kveik. My guess is probably London Fog? Guessing they put it in the cask before it's fully dried out so it scrubs the oxygen in the cask and introduced in the transfer? This suggests early hopping schedule and no cold crash? Do they use a float in the cask? No SMB, ascorbic acid, or other antioxidant added? Was it tapped that day? Do we know how long it lasts before it starts with the darkening and other oxidative issues? Do they use a CO2 Aspirator breather valve?
Hey Leo - this was a story for drinkers not homebrewers, but some very good questions there. It was an ale yeast, cold crashed then transferred a few points of the FG to allow for refermentation at a slightly warmer temp afterwards. I believe it was vented the day before and tapped that day, and nothing was added to prevent oxidation so I presume it would have turned within 48 hours - which is why this was filmed on a Thursday so it was busy as it gets (Thursday is the new Friday). Not sure on the breather valve, sorry!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Thank you for the info! It is massively appreciated. Excellent content as always. Appreciate the advantages of broad appeal. I'm just fascinated by a good NEIPA served from a cask.
So, so good. Really enjoying it. I wish it were a 24 part series. Actually I wish i was there right now having one. The one thing that was killing me was the mic on the lapel OF THE VEST? He had a blue oxford on! I wanted to be able to hear him.
Fair comment! Messed up there....
@@TheCraftBeerChannel You're doing a great job. 👍🏼
Great series! And thanks Fullers for funding it. I was worried Fullers might change following their buyout a few years back, but in fact their beer is as good as it's ever been, and the pubs are even better than before lockdown. Long may that continue!
Absolutely. Asahi have been great so far as far as we can see - even better than the previous family owners at investment and innovation.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel I wonder why they don't have Urquell at their pubs as they share Asahi as their owner. Also Pentrich makes some great NE style cask
Great series! Wish cask ale was more available in the States.
Haha I wish it were more available in the UK!
So cask beer being virtually non existent in Eastern Canada, how does secondary fermentation in the cask differ as far as mouth feel vs a kegged beer?
I envision it as something similar to a beer on nitro, but maybe it is somewhere in between keg (CO2) and keg (Nitro). I think I have had one cask beer in my time, and while it was at a pretty good beer bar, their explanation of a "cask beer" was that it wasn't chilled, and the cask just sat on the bar in ambient temperature (clearly that is wrong).
When going about making a cask beer, is it as simple as the beer goes from the primary fementer, into the cask (the secondary fermenter), and whatever yeast is still in the beer is what makes the CO2 in the cask? Or do that add more yeast to the cask?
Could this not be done in a traditional keg home brew set up? Secondary fermentation in the keg? I realize it is manually pumped from the cask, but instead of a pump to dispense the beer, could you not just use just enough serving pressure from a CO2 canister to dispense?
Sorry for the question, cask newbie, only because it just doesn't exist here, save for one local brewery that has a cask night one night a week, but it is usually just a core beer, that they have put in a cask, with something extra (core stout with cold brew coffee and/or cocoa nibs added, or core Belgian IPA with some sort of fruit added), and it isn't pumped into the glass, the cask is just on the bar back, with a tap and gravity fed into the glass. Not sure if it is actually secondary fermented in the cask, and not just the cask filled from their brite tank, already with CO2 in it.
Gravity dispense is perfectly acceptable for cask beer IMO. It is the conditioning, the secondary fermentation, in the cask that is the key.
@@andyleighton3616 Sure, but not when they just take a core beer out of the brite tank (same as they would do for a normal keg), put it in a cask with a few extras, slap it up on the counter and call it a "cask"
I'm the head brewer of a small brewery in Yorkshire. Half my family lives in Canada (Edmonton although they're moving to to BC) so I go to Canada every year at least once. I've had cask beer over there several times and have never had a good one.
The lower carbonation of cask does give a different mouth feel that is somewhat akin to nitro but yes you are right, the end result is somewhere in between.
Essentially it is that simple. Once your beer has reached the desired abv you chill it down to drop out the yeast, add auxiliary/adjunct finings and let settle for a few days. Then transfer to your casks. No extra yeast is needed in this instance. If you want a clear beer you may want to add cask finings (although you can get clear cask beer without if you want).Then let your cask condition for 2 weeks at around 12'C.
If you were to try the same method in a keg you would get something similar but when it comes to cask dispense is vitally important. With a proper cask you would let the cask breathe through a semi porous wooden spyle for 24 hours before serving. This allows the cask maturation to complete its process.
As for drinking cask straight from it gravity fed, that is totally acceptable and is the old style. However it ideally should be temp controlled.
@@T-1001 Yeah, there is only one locally that does a cask night once a week. I don't believe they are secondary fermenting them in the cask, just filling them off the brite tank same as they would for a normal keg, so the beer is already carbonated, and then adding something extra to them to make them different.
Gravity feed, room temp when they are served
Fantastic series
Love this series!
As a lover of British Beer, it saddens me there's an implication that the future of cask lies in sludge, aka swamp water.
People expressed similar sentiments about American hopped beer on cask 15 years ago. The fact is, cask ales future is reliant on diversity of drinkers and diversity of styles being poured. If you don't like that style, no problem. But it will help protect the styles you do.
Very much about dropping that stigma of cask, but difficult when it’s sold as this old U.K. traditional beer format. Find the sweet spot of marketing it.
Totally agree. Hoping this video does that!
Dark Star Hophead was a fine beer until it was taken over by some Japanese outfit. It then went downhill dramatically until, at last they realised their absurd mistake and started brewing it again at the Dark Star Brewery. The original Brewer, Mark Tranter brews a splendid beer called Burning Sky . You can get it round the corner from the Evening Star in the Prince Albert, Trafalgar Street .Have a go at Kent Brewery Prohibition if you get the chance. One of the best real ale pubs in that part of the world is the Crown in Eastbourne , or the Hurst Arms for a great range of Harvey`s
I think Hophead struggled long before Asahi came in - but it is now tasting great again. We have done a few vids at Burning Sky and they are in my new book!
Stop this idea that we need a story of beer, or any product all we need to do is talk to the people who make it; we don't need a story that's marketing bullshit
...erm... isn't the story and the person who made it the same thing?
24:12 my man drops an absolute clanger and tries to save it with the most buttery of fingers. What a highlight
"WOMEN CAN SERVE BEER ALSO"