Hand Pumped Beer = meh

Went to a Shark's game and to a local pub afterwards. They had 4 or 5 cask aged beers that they hand pumped to serve. I asked and they said that the beer was no carbonated except for the pumping action to pour. I had a porter that was tasty, but went completely still rather quickly. Seemed like kind of a novelty to me.

The whole argument behind cask conditioned ales is that CO2 adds flavor to beer, which it definitely does. I enjoy cask beers, but only certain beers. I tend to enjoy heavy IPAs and other beers with complexities that might be missed otherwise.

Not a novelty at all. Go to England. If done right cask beers are amazing.

The pumping shouldn't be a source of carbonation. Typically, the beer should be slightly carbonated, and the pour through the sparkler head will cut that down even more. It can seem flat, but it shouldn't be. Low carbonation and warmer serving temperatures enhance certain flavors that can get lost in fizzy beers served near freezing.

I've had some good ones in America, but there's nothing like a fresh Greene King in England. Like fifelee said, if it's done right it can be amazing.

I had a wonderful cask conditioned black IPA at Right Brain. It was fantastic! Bob didn't care at all for the "warm flat" IPA but I thought it was awesome. Served at cellar temperatures, with the cascading bubbles from the beer engine, the aroma and texture was great.

Real ale isn't a novelty at all, but it may not be for everyone.

I don't see how anyone who appreciates beer wouldn't like cca? Delicious and fantastic.

Damn, San Jose's a long haul from up in your neck of the woods....

Cask ale is (like with everything else) great if it's done right. (As others have mentioned) It SHOULD be carbonated - but not to the point of most beers as we know them. Certainly not flat, tho. Second, cellar temp is definitely not ice cold, usually in the low 50s, but far from warm.

A lot of people hear cask and think "room temp and flat" which is generally the result of it being served completely wrong. I think it's just a shock to the system for beer drinkers who haven't experienced it before, or are used to the fizzy and freezing method.

triangulum33 said:

Went to a Shark's game and to a local pub afterwards. They had 4 or 5 cask aged beers that they hand pumped to serve. I asked and they said that the beer was no carbonated except for the pumping action to pour. I had a porter that was tasty, but went completely still rather quickly. Seemed like kind of a novelty to me.

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User error. It should be carbonated to about 1.3 volumes.

The problem with cask ale is it requires skill at the point of service. Most people trying to do it in the US are comically unskilled.

I'm...just not that into British styles. And, I have had them in the UK.

Deutschland uber alles!

(...and Belgium, too.)

THis is something Im just starting to get into. The Rock Bottom brewery around here usually has 2 or 3 beers on cask. I just had a wonderful British IPA and a chocolate stout on cask, they also had the same 2 beers served on gas and I have to say that I was able to pick up flavors on the beers that were cask conditioned that the co2 counterparts were lacking.

Keep trying cask beers, youll find that its a whole new world for beers

remilard said:

User error. It should be carbonated to about 1.3 volumes.

The problem with cask ale is it requires skill at the point of service. Most people trying to do it in the US are comically unskilled.

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You're assuming that people can tell the difference. A lot of people overcarb their beers, and to them one volume is flat.

ubermick said:

Damn, San Jose's a long haul from up in your neck of the woods....

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Maybe he has a house on that air park they have up there and a private plane!

The Ship Inn in Milford, NJ has gotten a little away from their British Brew Pub heritage, but they still do a good job on hand pumped beers. Last time there they had a Black IPA on the pump and it was excellent. Their Best Bitter on the pump is a staple there and always great.

There was a pub around here that had a very good IPA. Just a strong, solid, well-hopped, tasty beer.

But when they served it on cask, it was otherworldly. All kinds of subtle flavors, malt and hops, that you never noticed when it was cold and heavily carbonated. Smooth, too, easy to drink. Tasted so much fuller and complex and "rounder" without the carbonation masking so much of the flavor.

A dark IPA on cask sounds phenomenal, so many of those flavors just get lost.

Cask ale, all the beer flavors that we love but just magnified by 10x.

Now, if the basic beer was kind of flat and boring, serving it on cask may not have helped. This same pub had some kind of brown ale or porter that was just "meh" on cask (tasted like it was fermented very warm, way too estery even for an English ale). But it was a pretty mediocre beer when cold and fully carbed anyway. Serving on cask isn't going to make a bad beer good, if anything it'll unmask the flaws of a poorly-made beer. Serve something cold and bubbly, you aren't going to notice flaws as readily.

Serving on cask isn't going to make a bad beer good, but it'll make a good beer excellent. IMHO.

Getting cask ales conditioned correctly is a very technical skill involving regulating the pressure of CO2 in the cask by alternately using hard and soft pegs called spiles in a small hole in the cask. If done properly the beer inside will be lightly carbonated much like a bottled British Ale. Doing this right is a hard task and is often done badly even amoung UK publicans.