As in real ale. Cask ale. That classic style of gently carbonated, cellar temperature beer that so often gets dismissed as flat and warm here in the States.
Admittedly, it took Lara and me awhile to understand what’s so great about it. Eventually, though---like hop bombs and sours before it---cask ale began to reveal itself the more we sampled it until we finally looked at each other and said, “We should try this for ourselves someday.”
Someday came sooner than expected when our friend Michael invited us to participate in a cask ale charity event, Casks for a Cure 4. After attending the first three iterations of this event as mere tasters who dreamed of being on the business side of a firkin, we couldn’t possibly turn him down.
So we took the plunge, and when I say plunge, I mean a manic, shrieking, poo-flinging sort of plunge. It’s how we do it. We cycled two ales through the cask in less than 4 weeks, both of which we tapped in front of a big, thirsty crowd. No pressure. There’s a lot of great information out there on cask technique and procedure, so I won’t tack on yet another comprehensive review. Instead, I’ll run through the challenges and interesting points of our first two attempts.
Supplies
We bought our cask (a 5-gallon pin) from a pretty great supplier up in Pennsylvania. The cask itself showed up on our doorstep utterly naked and without packaging save for a couple of UPS labels slapped right on the stainless steel body. That surprised me, but it’s pure steel, right? No harm done. Here’s a quick rundown of all we needed:
- 5-gallon pin
- stillage
- tap
- pour spout
- tail and nut for the beer engine
- assorted bungs, keystones, and spiles
- hop filter
- isinglass
Notice I didn’t mention a cooling jacket. Those things are expensive, so Lara made one for free dollars out of supplies we already had in the house. Kinda badass. I’ll leave that adventure for her to tell in a future post.
Racking and Conditioning
Our first two cask ales were a blood orange saison (Loveless) and a session IPA (Pretty Young Thing). They conditioned in very different situations. The saison came first and had a full 3 weeks to carbonate before we served it at Casks for a Cure. All we had to do was ensure we had enough priming sugar and finings to create a presentable beer. We were uncertain about the math...and the public tapping that would reveal our success or failure to a whole crowd of eager people. I’ve had plenty of casks that were woefully undercarbonated and even a few that were explosively overcarbonated. It didn’t help that the beer we chose for our first cask was a saison, a typically effervescent beer whose style is immediately far more carbonated than cask ale should be.
Oh, well. We aimed for the higher end of cask carbonation, which is the low end for saison. We racked the beer onto the priming sugar solution and isinglass, gave it a quick swirl to mix, and let it condition under Lara’s cooling jacket for 3 weeks.
First came the priming sugar...
...then came the isinglass for clarity...
...and last came the saison itself
Hammering the bung into place so the cask is sealed and the yeast can carbonate the beer in the cask
The session IPA, however, had to condition fully in 8 days. I figured we were simply screwed on the effervescence front, but John Federal, in a typical Yoda moment, suggested we add a quarter of a pack of dry brewer’s yeast to the cask when we racked the IPA into it. So that’s what we did once the saison was gone: priming solution, isinglass, the beer itself, and a couple shakes of Munton’s. Then we crossed our fingers.
Tapping and Pouring
Casks for a Cure 4 took place in Raleigh, a nice, bumpy drive from Durham, so we delivered the saison cask to its destination---Big Boss Brewing---the afternoon before the event. There the cask got to chill in one of Big Boss’s huge coolers. There the porous soft spile was tapped into the bung to allow the excess carbonation in the cask to slowly leech out. After that came the hard spile, essentially sealing the top of the cask again to hold carbonation during the event.
Here’s the part in which we totally luck out. Our friend Andrew poured alongside us at Casks for a Cure, and he brought a spare beer engine for us to serve with. That is just the hotness, not to mention a great lesson in slow, steady, creamy pours.
Our Casks for a Cure setup moments before we tapped the cask (which is under the table)
Oh, but I had to tap the cask first, right? I knew you had to hit the tap through the keystone hard---really hard---to ensure it properly sealed, but I still underestimated. It took three solid whacks to get the tap in place. Lesson for next time: be the hammer of the gods.
Our carbonation worries proved to be unfounded, as it poured with a nice, gentle bite. The pours even had respectable head thanks to the sparkler screwed onto the beer engine’s spout. (I would name my first child Sparkler.)
Three hours later, the spile was out, and the cask was empty
Success. Then, eight days later, that cask was full of IPA and sitting on a table at BrewDurham 4---maybe carbonated, maybe not. We didn’t have the benefit of a commercial cooler this time, so we used the best one we could find: our front porch on a 45-degree night. Whatever works.
The verdict: John’s advice absolutely helped. Carbonation was a touch lower than I’d have liked, but that could be because of either the short conditioning time or an unsuitable amount of sugar solution. Still, it was a lovely beer.
The cask slowly carbonating beneath Lara's cooling jacket
The cask in our "cellar" the morning of BrewDurham
Our BrewDurham setup
Lara and I didn’t have a beer engine for the IPA, and it was a rude awakening to revert to a basic plastic spout. It was also kind of a pain in the ass, regularly pouring slowly and getting stuck while people lined up with empty glasses. Time for an upgrade already?
It was a healthy introduction to one of the older beer styles, one we’ll dabble in 4-5 times a year given our usual festival and party schedule. We’ll let you know when the next one’s coming. Maybe we’ll even put an English-style ale into it one of these days.
Final thoughts? Final thoughts.
- Dry hopping: We added absolutely nothing to the saison cask, but we wanted to dry hop the crap out of the IPA. We used glass aquarium pebbles to weigh down the hop bag, keeping it from clogging the bunghole or blocking the keystone so we could properly vent excess carbonation and actually pour the beer. (Better than the fistful of rusty screws and nickel shavings I wanted to use.)
- Cellar temperature: Lara and I don’t have room in either our kegerator or refrigerator to chill a cask properly, but we do have a big covered porch and plenty of 45-55-degree nights. We’re still weighing our options for summer and winter casks, though.
- Pin vs. firkin: At first, I regretted buying a 5-gallon pin instead of a 10-gallon firkin, but considering the fact that you have essentially 3 days to drain a cask before the beer turns, it’s a lot of pressure to go any higher than 5 gallons if you don’t have a lot of company. We vote pin.
- Tapping: You really can’t hit the tap hard enough. Our rubber mallet got the job done, but a bigger striking surface and maybe a wood head less likely to absorb the force of the impact will seal the tap faster---and prevent spilled beer. (I used a friend’s huge wooden hammer for the saison and spilled almost nothing. I used our rubber mallet for the IPA and lost maybe half a pint.)
Lara working the crowd at BrewDurham
Paul Posted on 
We’re in trouble. Now that we know we can host a great beer festival in our own backyard, that’s exactly how I want all of them from now on. We can get a permit for that, right? Someone tell All About Beer.
Chais McCurry talking up his creations with an eager crowdSomeone was smart enough to suggest we make beer floats, and I have to say the gose went really well with a fat scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Vanilla dunkel gose floatHouse & Homebrew was an awful lot of fun despite a blush of rain in the first hour and a half of the event, but once the skies cleared and the lawn games started, we were in great shape. You never can tell exactly how things will go when you host a big event like this at your own house, but it turned out really well. I’d love to try this again someday soon. We certainly have the backyard for it.
Here's hoping the next version of this beer is named Loose Seal 2
Dawna and Ben's beer was great. That is just so typical
Chais' signage skills on display
Kim and Brittany's blonde ale
Lara's sign for our two beers and the NCGPO gose collaboration
On the list of things I love: kubb, an old Viking lawn game
Kelsey and his young, stick-wielding pal
Kelsey was thrilled to have so many people over...
...but Urchin, not so much
