Cask Ale - Preparation For Drinking

Preparation For Drinking

Broadly speaking, cask ale brewing starts the same as that of keg beer. The same brew run could be used to make cask, keg, and bottled beer. The difference is what happens after the primary fermentation is finished and the beer has been left to condition. Typically keg and bottled beers are either sterile-filtered or pasteurised or both, but beer destined for cask is simply 'racked' (poured) into the cask in its natural state. Finings are placed in the cask to assist 'dropping' the yeast giving a clear beer. Extra hops and priming sugar may also be added. The cask is sealed and sent off to the pub. In this state it is like a bottle-conditioned beer and, like bottle-conditioned beers, the beer will continue to develop for a certain period of time. Also like bottle-conditioned beers, the length of time the beer can last in the cask will depend on the nature of the beer itself: unopened, stronger beers can last for months; light, delicate beers need to be tapped and sold quickly. Stronger beers may also need longer to settle and mature. Some pubs have been known to keep very strong beers in a sealed cask for a year or more to allow them to fully develop.

When the landlord feels the beer has settled, and he is ready to serve it, he will knock a soft spile into the shive on the side of the cask. The major difference in appearance between a keg and a cask is the shive. A keg does not have a shive on the side. The majority of casks these days are metal, and look similar to a keg, but with the rounded traditional barrel shape (kegs are often straight-sided). Even though there are still some wooden casks around, these are rare; in fact there are more plastic casks around than wooden ones. Plastic casks are increasing in popularity because they are cheaper to buy and lighter to carry, though they don't last as long, they are also less likely to be stolen as they have no melt-down value. Beer casks come in a number of sizes, but by far the most common in the pub trade are those of 9 gallons (72 pints or roughly 41 litres) which is known as a Firkin and 18 gallons (144 pints or roughly 83 litres) known as a Kilderkin. (N.B. These are imperial gallons, equal to 1.201 US gallons each.)

The soft spile in the shive allows gas to vent off. This can be seen by the bubbles foaming around the spile. The landlord will periodically check the bubbles by wiping the spile clean and then watching to see how fast the bubbles reform. There still has to be some life in the beer otherwise it will taste flat. When the beer is judged to be ready, the landlord will replace the soft spile with a hard one (which doesn't allow air in or gas out) and let the beer settle for 24 hours. He will also knock a tap into the end of the cask. This might simply be a tap if the cask is stored behind the bar. The beer will then be served simply under gravity pressure: turn on the tap, and the beer comes out. But if the cask is in the cellar, the beer needs to travel via tubes, or beer lines, and be pumped up to the bar area, normally using a handpump also known as a 'beer engine'.