Cast ale

[killerzeek]

HI
Has anyone ever done a cast ale? I understand the idea to be that the final fermantation is without an airlock so the pressure is retained and it carbonates the beer.

It is a similar concept to the carbonation produced in bottle conditioning.

I use a corny keg, add some priming sugar and put it in the fer chamber for a week or so. Then because of the corny design with a pick up tube, the first glass or two is yeasty. So i burp the yeast, let the keg chill and drink.
There is no need to add any CO2 at all, not even to serve.

This method produces a nice full mouth feel and nice clear beer.

Is this really new age, cast ale?

 

[okiedog]

Killerzeek, what type of sugar do you use when priming? I've never heard of cast ale, but priming in a keg is not uncommon.

 

[Schol-R-LEA]

I suspect that the OP means cask ale, in which case I would say that a primed keg would still be quite different from an ale conditioned in a wooden cask. Casks by their very nature can only hold a limited pressure, and the wood itself imparts some flavor, as does the microflora of the cask.

 

[dinnerstick]

cast ale would be something to make in the plaster after your broken leg is healed. modern british cask ales, if that's what you mean, are lightly carbonated and served from steel or plastic casks that are not hugely different from a normal pressure keg, but the tapping and venting method is of course very different, and the pressure generated from a low dose of priming sugar or wort is much lower. maybe 100 years ago they were wooden and had microflora, but nowadays that's not the case, unless they have been tapped for more than a few days and are starting to grow cellar bugs, which trust me is not a good thing despite what some people love to claim. they get flat, go acetic, and get very nasty very quickly. this is why i advocate, if you find yourself in a small village pub in england with a few casks on tap, drink what the locals drink! there is usually a local favorite, and that will be the fresh one! i digress.
if you are keg conditioning and serving from a corny via the normal 'out' dip tube, then you are doing the same thing many people do for more highly carbonated beers, but just with less carbonation. another idea is to position the keg almost horizontally, but at a slight incline with the top a bit lower than the bottom, and the 'in' post below the 'out' post. vent all pressure after conditioning, and serve beer by gravity from the 'in' post while venting (to air, or to atmospheric pressure CO2) via the 'out' post (which should be sticking up above the level of liquid at the back of the keg. if you search for 'cask ale' you will find a lot of information on HBT and from other sources

 

[Schol-R-LEA]

I actually was thinking in terms of the modern craze for actual wooden casks, which seem to be a brewpub thing lately here in the US. IME, they generally are fresh, mainly because they advertise the day when they'll be tapping one and can expect a hundred or more beer fanatics to swoop down upon them and drink the whole thing in an evening. There aren't all that many places that will go to that much trouble, even in SF and Portland, so quite a few people will go out of their way to get to them. There's at least one such place in the Atlanta area, the Westside Five Seasons Brewing, and they'll tap a cask every other week or something like that. Don't be fooled by the advertising though, the atmosphere is very pretentious, and the prices steep, both of which are typical of the sort of places which do wooden casks; I find it worthwhile from time to time but couldn't afford it on a regular basis.

 

[hunter_le five]

I actually was thinking in terms of the modern craze for actual wooden casks, which seem to be a brewpub thing lately here in the US. IME, they generally are fresh, mainly because they advertise the day when they'll be tapping one and can expect a hundred or more beer fanatics to swoop down upon them and drink the whole thing in an evening. There aren't all that many places that will go to that much trouble, even in SF and Portland, so quite a few people will go out of their way to get to them. There's at least one such place in the Atlanta area, the Westside Five Seasons Brewing, and they'll tap a cask every other week or something like that. Don't be fooled by the advertising though, the atmosphere is very pretentious, and the prices steep, both of which are typical of the sort of places which do wooden casks; I find it worthwhile from time to time but couldn't afford it on a regular basis.

It sounds like you're referring to barrel-aged beers, which are beers that have been aged in wooden whiskey barrels after primary fermentation to impart a more complex flavor, but are then transferred to a traditional sanke keg for carbonating and serving. This is pretty popular at brewpubs these days.

I've never heard of any American brewpubs serving beer directly out of wooden casks, though perhaps I'm mistaken.

Traditional cask ale in the UK is carbonated and served from plastic or metal casks or firkins, and generally dispensed using a hand pump called a beer engine. This is the sort of thing the OP is referring to.

 

[Schol-R-LEA]

No, hunter_la5, I am probably the one who has gotten it wrong. I know many places that serve barrel aged beers, but they almost always then serve them from regular kegs. I know a few places that serve out of casks, but thinking back, I don't know if they are using actual wooden casks or metal lined ones. Probably the latter, if only because it would be such a risky and difficult thing to do; no one would risk their reputation on a bad batch, and wooden casks would be just asking for that. Barrel aging is a different thing, to be sure, and I probably was confusing the two when I posted earlier.

 

[GrogNerd]

"cask", or "real" ale

Beer brewed from traditional ingredients.
Matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed.
Served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide.


When cask-conditioned:
Served unfiltered, yet 'bright' not cloudy.
At 'cellar' temperature, approximately 50 - 56 °F.

or checkout Brewing TV did an episode

there is a brewpub here in Leesburg that always has something on cask

 

[bobmcstuff]

"cask", or "real" ale

Beer brewed from traditional ingredients.
Matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed.
Served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide.


When cask-conditioned:
Served unfiltered, yet 'bright' not cloudy.
At 'cellar' temperature, approximately 50 - 56 °F.

or checkout Brewing TV did an episode

there is a brewpub here in Leesburg that always has something on cask

Wot he said.

This is how you make proper English beer.

 

[GrogNerd]

msg from owner of the shop where one of my brewclubs meet

"I have a PIN of real ale that should be ready to serve off the beer engine tomorrow."

he's big on real ales and recently helped out at a huge real ale festival in the UK