New Fresh Ale category claimed

[Sadfield]

“It’s not cask, but it’s an attempt to get a similar flavour profile from the mouthfeel and the pub only has to sell seven pints a day to maintain freshness.”

"This is for all ale drinkers, but it’s for drinkers that would walk into a pub and normally not get one so it’s a chance for ale drinkers to get an ale in pubs that don’t do cask, but also a chance for lager drinkers to reappraise ale where they’ve perhaps drifted out of cask and gone into world lager.”

“We don’t want to replace cask ale. We want to preserve cask ale as much as possible. And that message has to be loud and clear. This is not an ‘instead of’."

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2...sh-ale-dispense-for-wainwright-and-hobgoblin/

Cask ale isn't always served from a hand pulled engine though. Aitkin Tall Fonts are popular in Scotland. Gravity pour is another option. There's more to cask than dispense.

How many on here naturally carbonate and serve their Bitter from cask through a beer engine? Not many. Yet many are happy with the same end product this will return.

 

[marshbrewer]

I don't disagree that there is more to cask / real ale than dispense, which is why fresh keg ale isn't cask / real ale. My concerns are that people associate beer engines with cask. That is why they are using them for fresh ale, in my opinion, as they are trying to hoodwink the unaware punter.

Most of that press release is marketing speak, but none of it really explains why they don't serve it through taps like all other keg.

 

[Sadfield]

Most of that press release is marketing speak, but none of it really explains why they don't serve it through taps like all other keg.

They don't say they're serving it through hand pull.

The cynic in me thinks they're actually manouving back to cask ale, as they see a trend towards people drinking premium products, and they'll pay less tax and have better margins on low abv cask, than premium lagers. Fresh and Real being marketable words associated with a premium product.

 

[marshbrewer]

I can assure you that they are indeed proposing serving it through a beer engine.

Let's just hope it's a massive failure, and there are a load of keg modified hand pumps flooding the second hand market * as I know a while forum full of keg users who would be interested

*this is a joke, I appreciate the modifications will mostly in in the CO2 lines

 

[Sadfield]

I'd be careful what you wish for. Who influences 'the unaware punter' the most? And what they choose to drink? For years it's been cheap lager, but what's next? If those punters are turned from Lager to what they think is cask, who stands to benefit?

 

[marshbrewer]

Not cask drinkers if cask is longer in their chain pubs supply catalogue, knowledge of how to keep it has been lost, and the various mass / large volume cask brands are now only available as keg to be served through a beer engine.

 

[clib]

CAMRA stopped opposing cask breathers in 2018 :
https://camra.org.uk/press_release/...ture-as-its-members-call-for-positive-change/

I'm completely aware of that but they don't seem to promote them, they seem to merely tolerate them. Surely they'd prefer cask breathers to other options, like fresh ale, or no ale?

 

[The Baron]

Is this really that different from putting your beer in a corny then transferring it to a beer bag and handpulling it through a beer engine. The beer will have some natural carbonation when transferred from the FV to the corny then I usually put a minimum of CO2 over it just enough to burp it.
Most of us homebrewers do not really do genuine Cask ale but mimic it to get as much age out of the beer as is possible as we can not drink it that fast.
Only asking?

 

[Squidder]

I normally store my beer in Fermenter King Juniors so effectively cornies. I'll keep them at about 10psi and serve from a Nukatap when its just me drinking. I've also got a Pint365 hand pull and if I've got a few people round I'll connect this up with a quick disconnect and release the pressure in the FKJ. I'll then connect my CO2 bottle so that it has enough pressure to replace the displaced beer I pull through. When I've finished I can disconnect the Pint365 and re-pressurise the FKJ to 10 PSI. This way I can keep the beer for months. No one drinking would know the difference between this and a cask and I don't throw anything away.
Most of the pubs I go to round here care more about food than beer and dont know / care how they keep it and I must reject 30% of cask I am served.

 

[clib]

Fresh ale is filtered, yeast removed, so further conditioning is compromised. Cask ale develops in the cask.

 

[marshbrewer]

Is this really that different from putting your beer in a corny then transferring it to a beer bag and handpulling it through a beer engine.

No, it's almost exactly that (except they filter it before putting it in the keg, force carb it and don't have the intermittent beer bag step). As you say, it's a way to mimic cask, but it isn't cask. Which is why I have an issue with them passing it off as cask, which at the point of serve, I think they are trying to do irrespective of what their marketing team say about "the theatre of cask blaa blaa blaa".

Just proudly serve it from a normal keg tap with PoS display materials exorting the great taste of fresh ale. But they aren't planning on doing that.... I wonder why?

 

[Sadfield]

No, it's almost exactly that (except they filter it before putting it in the keg, force carb it and don't have the intermittent beer bag step).

Are you sure?

"How close is it to what Otter Brewery launched last spring? Speaking to the drinks business, CMBC vice president of marketing John Clements admitted: “There are some parallels” and explained that fresh ale “goes through a secondary fermentation but, unlike cask, we do that in the brewery and then we filter out the yeast, but it remains an unpasteurised product. This means it still has a shorter shelf life than keg ale, but it extends the shelf life and it’s in a 30 litre keg, so a smaller vessel size, and it will last 14 days.”

Just proudly serve it from a normal keg tap with PoS display materials exorting the great taste of fresh ale. But they aren't planning on doing that.... I wonder why?

Well it is ever so simple. They are trying to bridge a gap between keg and cask, taking the shelf life and convenience of keg, and the taste, feel and delivery of cask. If they treated it exactly like keg it would be just that keg.

 

[marshbrewer]

No, I'm not sure. Unlike real ale in cask, which is a defined thing, "Fresh Ale" can be owt.

 

[marshbrewer]

Well it is ever so simple. They are trying to bridge a gap between keg and cask, taking the shelf life and convenience of keg, and the taste, feel and delivery of cask. If they treated it exactly like keg it would be just that keg.

Well it's is ever so simple. They are trying to sell keg as cask, by passing it of as something it isn't. In reality, it is keg. I can't bridge the difference between a Fiat and a Ferrari by slapping a Ferrari badge and paint job on a Panda.

 

[clib]

Are you sure?

"How close is it to what Otter Brewery launched last spring? Speaking to the drinks business, CMBC vice president of marketing John Clements admitted: “There are some parallels” and explained that fresh ale “goes through a secondary fermentation but, unlike cask, we do that in the brewery and then we filter out the yeast, but it remains an unpasteurised product. This means it still has a shorter shelf life than keg ale, but it extends the shelf life and it’s in a 30 litre keg, so a smaller vessel size, and it will last 14 days.”



Well it is ever so simple. They are trying to bridge a gap between keg and cask, taking the shelf life and convenience of keg, and the taste, feel and delivery of cask. If they treated it exactly like keg it would be just that keg.

The key difference is that it is filtered and has had the yeast removed. It's most likely force carbonated too. The secondary fermentation happens before filtering. It's then put in kegs and CO2 must be added in the keg I think. It will be different from cask, I reckon, but the proof will be in the pudding. It's keg beer except it hasn't been pasteurised.

 

[Agentgonzo]

I wonder whether people got so worked up when brewers stopped using wooden casks and switched to metal ones

 

[clib]

I wonder whether people got so worked up when brewers stopped using wooden casks and switched to metal ones

Almost certainly, but not on the internet.

 

[An Ankoù]

The key difference is that it is filtered and has had the yeast removed. It's most likely force carbonated too. The secondary fermentation happens before filtering. It's then put in kegs and CO2 must be added in the keg I think. It will be different from cask, I reckon, but the proof will be in the pudding. It's keg beer except it hasn't been pasteurised.

The same as beer from a "corny" or a party keg, then?

 

[An Ankoù]

Almost certainly, but not on the internet.

You say that, but the beads on my abacus were too hot to touch, as I recall.

 

[An Ankoù]

I wonder whether people got so worked up when brewers stopped using wooden casks and switched to metal ones

They certainly did. SPBW predated CAMRA and are still going strong.
https://www.spbw.beer