Tasting British Cask-Conditioned Ales?

[Brewitt]

I am posting this with the risk of starting a flame war. I am completing a two week trip to England, not a beer tourism trip but I crammed some beer tasting in where I could. I realize that I should have posted before the start of my trip asking for suggestions and guidance but instead I am sitting at the end of my trip confused. I have had no less than a dozen different cask conditioned ales around southern England. They have ranged from stouts to porters to blonds to IPAs. I have not found a single one to be excellent overall and most of them to be downright poor. Admittedly, I did not study the subject or seek out the very best pubs. But I found the beers invariably lacking in malt backbone, body, and often have a lagery thinness without the refreshing quality of a good lager. I have a list that I won't post but I tried to poll the server regarding "best example" of x, y or z in the pub. I should say that I appreciate a broad range of beers including sours, pilsners/lagers, belgian ales of all sorts, american IPAs, saisons, etc.

With all of that said, I'm confused. Did I just find a wide range of beer styles I don't like, are british cask conditioned ales lacking in design, are the great british beers few and far between, what is the issue. Open to input.

 

[metic]

Well, I love real ales, and drinking them is one of the most exciting things about coming home to England for me. So I'll say a few things...

First, it's possible that cask ales just aren't your thing. They can often be a bit thin, particularly lower gravity ones; and even beers you are pretty familiar with (e.g. something like Fullers London Pride) might taste pretty different to you the first few times you try them from a cask.

Second, you really are at the mercy of the pub you visit when you drink these beers. You want to find pubs with a reasonably high turnover on their real ales, and with a landlord who knows how to treat the casks. I've had plenty of lackluster pints in unfamiliar pubs, and even in pubs I generally trust to serve good beer. I think drinkers of real ale are at a real disadvantage here: beer from a keg is often more consistent, so that (as long as the pub has reasonably clean lines) you have a better idea of what you're going to be served. Real ale is more of a gamble, but going to good pubs helps mitigate the gamble you take in ordering beer from a cask.

But even then you still end up with a few duds. Sometimes it's just a bad beer, sometimes the cask just isn't at its best and tastes flat and lifeless. That can be very frustrating, especially if you only have time or money for a pint or two.

But when real ale is good, there's nothing like it, for me anyway. I'm back in the UK right now, and I've been to quite a few pubs since I've been back, some familiar and some that I've never been to before. I'd say about 85% of the beer I've had has been excellent---bright, hoppy, wonderfully drinkable.

So I don't really know what to tell you. Maybe you've just been unlucky, or maybe you don't really like real ale. I wouldn't give up though. My girlfriend is an American and loves craft beer; the first time we visited, she was pretty disappointed and perplexed by cask beers; this visit, she orders them about fifty percent of the time, and has had a few she really liked...

 

[stz]

What did you drink? Where did you go? Do you have any notes? I'd say that real ale is undergoing a revolution at the moment and as such some are outstanding, others are missing the point. Same with the landlords and pubs.

Here in this city, we've got 5 pubs I can think of that have their own microbrewery on site and they typically have 4+ of their own ales on. The beer from these places is exceptional. We've one who seeks out and imports individual barrels of American speciality ales and puts on some pretty extreme varieties which usually come with some eye watering price tags. We've got one place which regularly has 20+ cask ales on at one time, more often than not 30+.

Then you've a handful of places which look like they'd do good beer, but they are essentially up market sports bars, flat screen TV's and hand cut chips to go with carbon copy 'real ale' style selections. We've got chain places which carry a decent selection, but nothing outstanding, nothing you'd shout out loud about, but then the prices are not there. The fella who imports individual cask beers, some of his heavily hopped beers are £7.5 a pint, a place like weatherspoons want £1.80 for an average cask beer.