What are cask ales?

[Soton]

I know it's a matter of preference and personal taste, but I find cask beers to be a bit of an 'excuse' to serve warm, flat and usually 'off' beer.

We seem to have been convinced that this is how beer is supposed to be.

I'm sure that properly cared for cask ales are perfectly good but I've yet to find one.

I'd much rather drink a cool, crisp, clear pint with a nice head than something that looks and tastes like pond water.

Col. P.

In my opinion you are sort of right
But a well kept cask of beer can be excellent, for that you need a good landlord with a good cellar with space for a couple of casks of each beer he sells, and enough customers to finish a barrel in a few days
Your average beer festival cant do that, but it doesn't take a big jump of the imagination to know what a particular ale at a beer festival would taste like if it was and was well looked after and served at a optimum temperature.
I'm sure we have all had a favourite beer, and not just cask ales, and it's was better then usual, had another and it was just as good, that's down to everything being just right for that beer at that time

 

[Sandimas]

I find cask beers to be a bit of an 'excuse' to serve warm, flat and usually 'off' beer.

It depends. One of my locals has casks in the bar area gravity-fed, so this time of year the beer is about 22C and not nice. But get them in the right environment and I love them: we have a local sping beerfest around Easter in an old monastry, and the gravity-fed beers are excellent.

There was a time where the was a wide variation in the quality of cask beer due to landlords not knowing how to look after it, but I'd say that it's been an improving sitution and most cask beers I have these days are fine. Been a long time since I've had a bad pint.

 

[Martybhoy]

So is there much difference between a bottle conditioned ale, and a cask ale? A cask ale will be hand pulled and (I assume), aerated at the point of dispensing to produce a foamy head. Other than that, both are pretty similar?

Also, as to the quality of the cask ales I had, they were awesome. Maybe some pubs are better than others, but I absolutely loved the pints I had in that particular pub.

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[terrym]

I know it's a matter of preference and personal taste, but I find cask beers to be a bit of an 'excuse' to serve warm, flat and usually 'off' beer.

We seem to have been convinced that this is how beer is supposed to be.

I'm sure that properly cared for cask ales are perfectly good but I've yet to find one.

I'd much rather drink a cool, crisp, clear pint with a nice head than something that looks and tastes like pond water.

Col. P.

I think that's a bit harsh. :-?
Without doubt there is is wide variation in the quality of some cask beers, and that just as much applies to what comes out of the brewery as to what comes out of the pub tap nozzle.
However there is some good out there, just as there is some bad. Like many others I have had good pints of cask beer and not so good like the one I took back to the bar the other week.
But as you say we are all different, with different tastes, and look for different things in our beer.
Although I am not a member, never have been, I and many many others should be grateful to CAMRA for pressurising breweries to keep cask beers going in the 1960s and 70s, or we could have now all been drinking grandchild of Watneys Red Barrel or some other rubbish and little else of any character.

 

[simon12]

Bottle conditioned beers tend to have higher carbonation levels than cask beers as they are opened and served immediately while a cask has to have the pressure released which stirs up the sediment that then needs to settle before its served. Most commercial breweries also tend to make there bottled beers stronger in ABV than there cask beers. Part of the difference is cask beers are usually put in the cask a few points before they reach there final gravity so its still full of yeast which needs to settle to the bottom while if it is going to be bottled they would wait or do something to get rid of more yeast before its bottled.

 

[Martybhoy]

Makes sense. But if you are in control of carbonation in your bottles, could you not then lower it a little to match the cask ale level of carbonation?

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[simon12]

Makes sense. But if you are in control of carbonation in your bottles, could you not then lower it a little to match the cask ale level of carbonation?

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I see no reason why not, in this case I think the only difference would be in the pour but wouldn't like to say 100% it would be exactly the same but it could be.

 

[peebee]

So is there much difference between a bottle conditioned ale, and a cask ale? A cask ale will be hand pulled and (I assume), aerated at the point of dispensing to produce a foamy head. Other than that, both are pretty similar?

Also, as to the quality of the cask ales I had, they were awesome. Maybe some pubs are better than others, but I absolutely loved the pints I had in that particular pub.

See what you started? I could have warned you. Everyone's quite laid back on this site though, such a topic on some sites will result in the forum equivalent of a punch up.

The document I linked earlier will have your answers, but it does take a bit of stamina to get through it. "Cask" beer is virtually impossible to recreate in a home environment which is why I worked on and wrote up that article. The problem is the techniques of managing "cask" beer will also result in the beer going off (or flat) in just a few days. The techniques I described emulate a "cask" beer (rather than attempt to copy a Pub environment), so you can enjoy that beer for several weeks.

You don't need a hand-pump to emulate a "cask" beer, but they do have a big impact on the beer. It is also wrong to assume you are getting "cask" beer because it comes out of a hand-pump: It's a good indicator and right most times, but it can also be used to deceive.

 

[Martybhoy]

Peebee, it's possible that what I had might not have been a cask ale. It did come from a hand pump, was not too chilled and had a creamy, foamy head (this was 2 different pints).

Is there something else it could have been, other than a cask ale? It was a busy, but small, central London pub, with about 30 different beers on tap, about 12-15 of those were hand-pulled. If a real cask ale only lasts 3 days or so once opened, I suspect all the hand-pulled pints might not have been cask ales.

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[peebee]

I see no reason why not, in this case I think the only difference would be in the pour but wouldn't like to say 100% it would be exactly the same but it could be.

I'd disagree. Which is why you wont find a single instance of "cask" beer in a bottle commercially (or not one that works that is).

The carbonation of "cask" beer is just too subtle, and the expectations of a (sparkling) bottled beer just too ingrained.

 

[peebee]

Peebee, it's possible that what I had might not have been a cask ale. It did come from a hand pump, was not too chilled and had a creamy, foamy head (this was 2 different pints).

Is there something else it could have been, other than a cask ale? It was a busy, but small, central London pub, with about 30 different beers on tap, about 12-15 of those were hand-pulled. If a real cask ale only lasts 3 days or so once opened, I suspect all the hand-pulled pints might not have been cask ales.

You've just hit on one of the things that is winding CAMRA members up at the moment!

It would be impossible for a small pub (and many large pubs unless exceptionally busy) to maintain 12-15 "cask" beers. They are selling keg beers from hand-pumps, although probably at a much reduced pressure.

Some very high turnover pubs might get away with using "breathers" (CO2 at zero PSI) but these devices only extend the "sell-by" time by a day or so (the beer still goes flat eventually).

 

[simon12]

I imagine in central London even a small pub could be busy enough for them to be cask ales, theres a pub near me thats always got 2-4 cask ales on in good condition and its only busy at weekends with almost noone in during week days and maybe 15-20 in there on weekday evenings, so I would think any pub in central London could sell 10 times as much. Any way you can work it out mathematically as a cask normally has 72 pint total capacity so 65ish will be served from each so 65 pints times 15 hand pumps divided by 3 days they need to sell 325 pints from those a day or 22 from each (they can waste a bit if need be). Did it look like they could?

 

[simon12]

I'd disagree. Which is why you wont find a single instance of "cask" beer in a bottle commercially (or not one that works that is).

The carbonation of "cask" beer is just too subtle, and the expectations of a (sparkling) bottled beer just too ingrained.

I agree you would not fill a bottle with what you would put in a cask but could you not fill a bottle with the same beer but after more of the yeast has dropped out and prime it only slightly so that would leave the bottle in the same condition as it would a cask or very close?

 

[peebee]

I agree you would not fill a bottle with what you would put in a cask but could you not fill a bottle with the same beer but after more of the yeast has dropped out and prime it only slightly so that would leave the bottle in the same condition as it would a cask or very close?

What does work for me: Because "emulating" a cask beer means I can have 1-2 PSI of CO2 on the beer, I can use a counter-pressure bottle filler (I'm right nobby and have one of those Russian Pegas taps) so I can fill PET bottles and take out "cask" beers for picnics, to friends, even give away (but not too often!) it'll keep for several days too.

Sometimes I'll have a beer that fobs like crazy (even at 1PSI) so it all gets bottled with the Pegas tap and I serve it from the bottles, not any of the taps.

My belief is that dosing bottles with the right amount of priming sugar necessary to get something like "cask" beer would be mind-numbingly tricky.

 

[Thumper]

You would have to ask them. The OP was regarding Cask Ale, cask Ale and Real Ale are not the same thing. Beer can be racked bright into a cask and not undergo secondary fermentation.

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Sorry, the way you phrased that sentence implied that was their definition.

if what went into the bag was real ale "unpasteurised, unfiltered beer containing live yeast - what comes out will still be real ale "beer which has “matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide.”

Looking at it again, though, it looks like the first quote might be a definition of "real ale" and the second a definition of "cask ale".

 

[Sadfield]

It was taken from the CAMRA site, but whether that is their true definition, who knows? They don't appear to agree amongst themselves what it is and what qualifies. Hence the confusion between Real and Cask, and also Keg and Cask.

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[Dr_Unkenly]

There are a few Craft Beer co. pubs in London and the beer there is generally pretty outstanding.

The one I usually frequent gets through its beer pretty quickly. Most beers are gone and replaced with something else within a few days, often less.

They often have kegs piled up round the side of the building and they're all really small, usually several of the same beer.

 

[peebee]

It was taken from the CAMRA site, but whether that is their true definition, who knows? They don't appear to agree amongst themselves what it is and what qualifies. Hence the confusion between Real and Cask, and also Keg and Cask.

There isn't really any confusion between "Real", "Cask" & "Keg". Sure CAMRA activists might argue, but about the detail. It's Joe Public that invents the confusion and their own takes on the definitions. So CAMRA should do a better job educating? They might, but there is always going to be someone who doesn't get it or doesn't want to. Fact of life, and I'm not just talking about beer.

 

[Irishwizard]

My 2 cents worth to the debate here, but surely beer tastes completely different from a traditional wooden barrel as opposed from a steel one. more room for debate here me thinks

 

[Thumper]

Only if it's been maturing in there for a while, surely?