This summer, I won a pin cask as a raffle prize at the River's Edge Homebrew Festival - yahtzee! Knowing nothing about casks, I did a little research, talked with some cask-experienced friends, and then cask conditioned a beer to serve at our homebrew clubs annual picnic. While I'm no expert, I'd like to share with you both what I've learned and my first homebrewed cask ale experience.
What are Casks?
A cask is a metal container for unpasteurized beer that is naturally carbonated through the use of active yeast inside the cask. It is like bottle conditioning a beer, but in a larger vessel. It's different than a keg, in that it doesn't have posts for CO2 or beer outflow - just two openings, one on top and the other on an end. Those holes get closed by pounding in two plastic parts - the shive on the top and the keystone on the end. The cask is then air tight and as the secondary fermentation happens inside it, the beer naturally carbonates.
Pin Cask with Shive and Keystone
When the beer is carbonated and ready to serve, a spile is driven through the shive on top to allow CO2 out of the cask and air into the cask and a tap is driven into the keystone, and the beer is served by gravity. You'll typically see casks come in two sizes: firkins and pins. A firkin traditionally holds 9 imperial gallons, which translates to 10.8 US gallons. A pin, like mine, is usually half that size.
Real Ale
Cask conditioning comes to us from England and it's there, across the pond, that what they call Real Ale has made a huge comeback in the past few decades. The group mobilizing Real Ale supporters is the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), formed in 1971 and now a force to be reckoned with in the UK. They are not focused on homebrewing but rather pubs - here is a paragraph from their website (http://www.camra.org.uk/en_US/home):
"CAMRA supports well-run pubs as the centres of community life whether in rural or urban areas and believe their continued existence play a critical social role in UK culture. ""CAMRA also supports the pub as the one place in which to consume real ale (also known as cask-conditioned beer, or cask ale) and to try one of over 5,500 different styles now produced across the UK."
My Experience of Professional Cask Conditioned or Real Ales
While CAMRA has helped the growth of pubs serving real ale in the UK, cask conditioned ale served in pubs in the US is more rare. One of the challenges for a bar serving cask conditioned beers is the beer's short shelf life. Because oxygen flows into the cask when the beer is served, and there is no CO2 gas pushing the beer out and forming a protective barrier over the beer, the beer stales very quickly. A bar needs to plan to finish a cask of real ale within a few days.
In bars and pubs, the casks are often stored below the bar, in a cellar, and then served via a beer engine, a hand pump that works on the principle of suction. The beer engine is usually attached to the bar and often has a decorative, ornamental long pull handle.
In Chicago, where I live, I've been to a few bars, such as the Globe Pub, that serve cask conditioned ales and have enjoyed them. I understand in the UK that traditional English ales dominate the Real Ale offerings - relatively light and sessionable with medium-low to low carbonation. In the US, the cask conditioned beers I've enjoyed in pubs have run the gamut stylistically - which isn't surprising given the inventive and creative nature of professional craft brewing here.
In the US, the other way to enjoy professionally brewed cask conditioned beers is at beer festivals. One that I attend, the Great Taste of the Midwest, has an entire tent dedicated to real ale. The casks are arranged on racks, double high, and are served by gravity through a tap that is simply opened and closed by turning it - no beer engines needed.
The real ale tent at the Great Taste is a testament to the creativity and experimental bent of American professional craft brewers. Many spices, fruits, herbs, and other additions are added to beers that range across the styles. And I've enjoyed many of the IPAs served in casks there, because of the brilliant freshness of the hops.
Homebrewing and Casks
Because beer won't stay fresh long in a cask once it is tapped and begins to be served, traditional cask conditioned beer isn't really adaptable to homebrewing unless you will be serving it at a large gathering. For the homebrewer, you need to know that you'll be able to serve five or so gallons at the event. Because of this, I only recall trying a homebrewed cask conditioned ale once, an English-style ESB.
Pin Cask Conditioning
My experience of both homebrewed and professionally brewed cask conditioned ales isn't that they are better than kegged or bottled beers, but rather different. Perhaps the best way to think about it is that it is a category unto itself. It's a way for a homebrewer, serving to a larger crowd, to highlight freshness. It's also well-suited on the homebrew scale to show off specialty ingredients, such as herbs or other flavorings, or aroma hops, which can be thrown into the cask before it is sealed up for the secondary fermentation.
My First Homebrewed Cask Conditioned Ale
After winning the cask as a prize this summer, I decided to brew a cask conditioned ale for the Brewers of South Suburbia's annual picnic. It's always a fun event, a day out in the country on a club member's farm, with lots of good food and handmade beers.
I decided to brew a hop-centric American-style IPA, with lots of hops thrown into the cask to accentuate the aroma as it gets served. Last spring, I experimented with a SMASH featuring Hallertau Blanc, a newly developed German hop with white grape and tropical fruit flavors and aromas. Building on that, I decided that for my inaugural cask conditioned beer, I'd use that hop along with two other newly developed German hops - Mandarina Bavaria and Huell Melon. John at Farmhouse Brewing had them all in stock and I was ready to go!
2 ounces of Mandarina Bavaria hops
For the grain bill, I used a variation of my typical American-style IPA, with 90% pale malt, 5% Munich malt, 3% wheat malt and 2% Crystal 40L malt. The hop schedule for a ten gallon batch was: 2 oz Hallertau Blanc (7.3% aa) in the mash; 1.5 oz Magnum (12%) first wort hop; 2 oz Magnum at twenty minutes; 2 oz Hallertau Blanc and 2 oz Mandarina Bavaria (7.2%) at ten minutes; and 2 oz Mandarina Bavaria and 2 oz Huell Melon (5.2%) at five minutes. This batch was fermented with Wyeast Scottish yeast at 65 degrees. Original gravity was 1.070, final gravity 1.010, 7% ABV, 15 SRM, and 72 IBUs.
10 gallons of IPA pumping through the counterflow chiller
After fermenting for two weeks, it was time to rack into the cask. I sanitized the cask, shive and keystone, and pounded the keystone in, leaving the hole on top open. As in bottle conditioning, I prepared a priming solution (4 ounces of table sugar with two cups of water), boiled, poured into the cask. Next, I racked the beer into the cask then tossed in a mesh bag with 2 ounces of each of the three featured hops. Finally, I pounded in the shive with a rubber mallet, closing the cask. After rolling the cask about a little, I let it sit in place for three weeks.
Serving at the Picnic
About a hundred people attend the picnic and brewers brought 20 kegs of handmade beer, in addition to my cask. I had two concerns with serving the beer at the picnic: 1) how to keep it somewhat cool (because we were outside at a farm) and 2) how to minimize the cloudiness.
The night before the picnic, my son and I drove out to the farm, with the cask, a large metal antique wash bin, bags of ice and blanket. At the farm, we set the bin up near where the cask would be served, put the cask in the bin, covered it with ice and put the blanket over the whole thing.
A gorgeous day for a picnic on a farm!
The next morning, we carefully lifted the cask out of the wash bin and, trying not to shake it up, put it on top of an upturned wooden barrel. We put blocks on both sides of it to hold it steady. Then we drove the spile into the shive on top, releasing some of the CO2 pressure.
Then came the dramatic focal point - tapping the cask! The tap is a black plastic piece that is meant to be pounded into the keystone, breaking the seal and wedging into the cask. The best practice would be to accomplish that with one mighty blow of the rubber mallet. I did not get that done, taking four whacks - but as soon the tap broke the seal, foam started shooting everywhere, until with my fourth whack I got the tap far enough in to seal the opening.
Before tapping the cask
After tapping the cask
Then I covered the top of the keg with two flexible ice blankets I had purchased online, with the blanket on top. I swapped out the ice blankets three times during the picnic and they did a reasonably good job of keeping the cask from being too warm.
To serve the beer, you turn the handle on the tap until it is open and gravity takes over. The beer tasted fresh, was a little cloudy from the sediment being disturbed, and the hop aroma was really nice, with tropical fruit, mango and citrus flavors filling the nose!
Cask with flexible ice blankets and an insulating blanket over it
To my surprise, the picnic goers drained the cask. I had a number of folks tell me how much they enjoyed the beer - I think an IPA was a good choice for the cask, because the cask process accentuates the fresh hoppiness of the style.
So, despite spraying myself with hoppy-goodness during the tapping, our first use of the cask exceeded my expectations! For homebrewers, I think a pin cask is a specialty piece of equipment, but an interesting addition for when you are brewing for a large gathering, like a party, wedding, picnic, festival or family reunion. Your beer will never taste fresher!
http://www.singingboysbrewing.com
[URL="//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/"]//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/ t=_self[/url]
What are Casks?
A cask is a metal container for unpasteurized beer that is naturally carbonated through the use of active yeast inside the cask. It is like bottle conditioning a beer, but in a larger vessel. It's different than a keg, in that it doesn't have posts for CO2 or beer outflow - just two openings, one on top and the other on an end. Those holes get closed by pounding in two plastic parts - the shive on the top and the keystone on the end. The cask is then air tight and as the secondary fermentation happens inside it, the beer naturally carbonates.
Pin Cask with Shive and Keystone
When the beer is carbonated and ready to serve, a spile is driven through the shive on top to allow CO2 out of the cask and air into the cask and a tap is driven into the keystone, and the beer is served by gravity. You'll typically see casks come in two sizes: firkins and pins. A firkin traditionally holds 9 imperial gallons, which translates to 10.8 US gallons. A pin, like mine, is usually half that size.
Real Ale
Cask conditioning comes to us from England and it's there, across the pond, that what they call Real Ale has made a huge comeback in the past few decades. The group mobilizing Real Ale supporters is the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), formed in 1971 and now a force to be reckoned with in the UK. They are not focused on homebrewing but rather pubs - here is a paragraph from their website (http://www.camra.org.uk/en_US/home):
"CAMRA supports well-run pubs as the centres of community life whether in rural or urban areas and believe their continued existence play a critical social role in UK culture. ""CAMRA also supports the pub as the one place in which to consume real ale (also known as cask-conditioned beer, or cask ale) and to try one of over 5,500 different styles now produced across the UK."
My Experience of Professional Cask Conditioned or Real Ales
While CAMRA has helped the growth of pubs serving real ale in the UK, cask conditioned ale served in pubs in the US is more rare. One of the challenges for a bar serving cask conditioned beers is the beer's short shelf life. Because oxygen flows into the cask when the beer is served, and there is no CO2 gas pushing the beer out and forming a protective barrier over the beer, the beer stales very quickly. A bar needs to plan to finish a cask of real ale within a few days.
In bars and pubs, the casks are often stored below the bar, in a cellar, and then served via a beer engine, a hand pump that works on the principle of suction. The beer engine is usually attached to the bar and often has a decorative, ornamental long pull handle.
In Chicago, where I live, I've been to a few bars, such as the Globe Pub, that serve cask conditioned ales and have enjoyed them. I understand in the UK that traditional English ales dominate the Real Ale offerings - relatively light and sessionable with medium-low to low carbonation. In the US, the cask conditioned beers I've enjoyed in pubs have run the gamut stylistically - which isn't surprising given the inventive and creative nature of professional craft brewing here.
In the US, the other way to enjoy professionally brewed cask conditioned beers is at beer festivals. One that I attend, the Great Taste of the Midwest, has an entire tent dedicated to real ale. The casks are arranged on racks, double high, and are served by gravity through a tap that is simply opened and closed by turning it - no beer engines needed.
The real ale tent at the Great Taste is a testament to the creativity and experimental bent of American professional craft brewers. Many spices, fruits, herbs, and other additions are added to beers that range across the styles. And I've enjoyed many of the IPAs served in casks there, because of the brilliant freshness of the hops.
Homebrewing and Casks
Because beer won't stay fresh long in a cask once it is tapped and begins to be served, traditional cask conditioned beer isn't really adaptable to homebrewing unless you will be serving it at a large gathering. For the homebrewer, you need to know that you'll be able to serve five or so gallons at the event. Because of this, I only recall trying a homebrewed cask conditioned ale once, an English-style ESB.
Pin Cask Conditioning
My experience of both homebrewed and professionally brewed cask conditioned ales isn't that they are better than kegged or bottled beers, but rather different. Perhaps the best way to think about it is that it is a category unto itself. It's a way for a homebrewer, serving to a larger crowd, to highlight freshness. It's also well-suited on the homebrew scale to show off specialty ingredients, such as herbs or other flavorings, or aroma hops, which can be thrown into the cask before it is sealed up for the secondary fermentation.
My First Homebrewed Cask Conditioned Ale
After winning the cask as a prize this summer, I decided to brew a cask conditioned ale for the Brewers of South Suburbia's annual picnic. It's always a fun event, a day out in the country on a club member's farm, with lots of good food and handmade beers.
I decided to brew a hop-centric American-style IPA, with lots of hops thrown into the cask to accentuate the aroma as it gets served. Last spring, I experimented with a SMASH featuring Hallertau Blanc, a newly developed German hop with white grape and tropical fruit flavors and aromas. Building on that, I decided that for my inaugural cask conditioned beer, I'd use that hop along with two other newly developed German hops - Mandarina Bavaria and Huell Melon. John at Farmhouse Brewing had them all in stock and I was ready to go!
2 ounces of Mandarina Bavaria hops
For the grain bill, I used a variation of my typical American-style IPA, with 90% pale malt, 5% Munich malt, 3% wheat malt and 2% Crystal 40L malt. The hop schedule for a ten gallon batch was: 2 oz Hallertau Blanc (7.3% aa) in the mash; 1.5 oz Magnum (12%) first wort hop; 2 oz Magnum at twenty minutes; 2 oz Hallertau Blanc and 2 oz Mandarina Bavaria (7.2%) at ten minutes; and 2 oz Mandarina Bavaria and 2 oz Huell Melon (5.2%) at five minutes. This batch was fermented with Wyeast Scottish yeast at 65 degrees. Original gravity was 1.070, final gravity 1.010, 7% ABV, 15 SRM, and 72 IBUs.
10 gallons of IPA pumping through the counterflow chiller
After fermenting for two weeks, it was time to rack into the cask. I sanitized the cask, shive and keystone, and pounded the keystone in, leaving the hole on top open. As in bottle conditioning, I prepared a priming solution (4 ounces of table sugar with two cups of water), boiled, poured into the cask. Next, I racked the beer into the cask then tossed in a mesh bag with 2 ounces of each of the three featured hops. Finally, I pounded in the shive with a rubber mallet, closing the cask. After rolling the cask about a little, I let it sit in place for three weeks.
Serving at the Picnic
About a hundred people attend the picnic and brewers brought 20 kegs of handmade beer, in addition to my cask. I had two concerns with serving the beer at the picnic: 1) how to keep it somewhat cool (because we were outside at a farm) and 2) how to minimize the cloudiness.
The night before the picnic, my son and I drove out to the farm, with the cask, a large metal antique wash bin, bags of ice and blanket. At the farm, we set the bin up near where the cask would be served, put the cask in the bin, covered it with ice and put the blanket over the whole thing.
A gorgeous day for a picnic on a farm!
The next morning, we carefully lifted the cask out of the wash bin and, trying not to shake it up, put it on top of an upturned wooden barrel. We put blocks on both sides of it to hold it steady. Then we drove the spile into the shive on top, releasing some of the CO2 pressure.
Then came the dramatic focal point - tapping the cask! The tap is a black plastic piece that is meant to be pounded into the keystone, breaking the seal and wedging into the cask. The best practice would be to accomplish that with one mighty blow of the rubber mallet. I did not get that done, taking four whacks - but as soon the tap broke the seal, foam started shooting everywhere, until with my fourth whack I got the tap far enough in to seal the opening.
Before tapping the cask
After tapping the cask
Then I covered the top of the keg with two flexible ice blankets I had purchased online, with the blanket on top. I swapped out the ice blankets three times during the picnic and they did a reasonably good job of keeping the cask from being too warm.
To serve the beer, you turn the handle on the tap until it is open and gravity takes over. The beer tasted fresh, was a little cloudy from the sediment being disturbed, and the hop aroma was really nice, with tropical fruit, mango and citrus flavors filling the nose!
Cask with flexible ice blankets and an insulating blanket over it
To my surprise, the picnic goers drained the cask. I had a number of folks tell me how much they enjoyed the beer - I think an IPA was a good choice for the cask, because the cask process accentuates the fresh hoppiness of the style.
So, despite spraying myself with hoppy-goodness during the tapping, our first use of the cask exceeded my expectations! For homebrewers, I think a pin cask is a specialty piece of equipment, but an interesting addition for when you are brewing for a large gathering, like a party, wedding, picnic, festival or family reunion. Your beer will never taste fresher!
http://www.singingboysbrewing.com
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