Posts Tagged ‘Cask Ale’
Cask at the Columbia Firehouse, Alexandria
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
Next Wednesday I’ll be hosting what is being billed as a “Cask Ale Masterclass” at the Columbia Firehouse in Alexandria. Details lifted from Mr. Cizauskas’ web page are below:
Cask-conditioned ale will be the topic on Wednesday evening, 16 February, 5:30 – 9pm, at Columbia Firehouse, in Alexandria, Virginia.
Steve Jones, brewmaster for Oliver Brewery at Pratt Street AleHouse in Baltimore, Maryland, will present a master class on cask-conditioned Real Ale: how to brew it, how to serve it, AND how to enjoy it.
Steve will tap and serve from a unique glass-bottomed firkin of his IronMan Pale Ale (6.2% abv). Participants will be able to actually see the beer and hops WITHIN the cask, and then observe what happens as the beer is poured! There is no formal agenda; Steve will be on hand from 5 until 9pm to talk about the cask and answer questions.
The official tapping will be at 5:30. The evening will include fresh cask-conditioned IronMan Pale Ale, complimentary hors d’oeuvres, and one souvenir glass per participant, while supply lasts. There is no admittance fee; simply pay for the beers you order. At the main bar, another of Steve’s cask beers —3 Lions Brown Ale (7.5% abv)— will be available, served handpulled through a traditional beer engine.
So, if you’ve ever wondered what the inside of a beer engine looks like or what the Hell a cask widge dispense is or, if you just want to enjoy a couple of pints of fresh cask conditioned ale, come along. I’ll be there between 5 and 9pm to discuss any and all aspects of cask conditioned ale and answer (if I can) any questions that you may have.
Cheers
Real Ale Festival Updates
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
Have you bought your ticket yet? If not don’t delay, the festival will be awesome. Tickets are available at http://www.spbw.org/realale/index.php. Here are a few of the flavors that have just been confirmed .. DuClaw are sending Double Dry hopped Venom Pale Ale-5.6% and Sawtooth(Wit) with Red Clover added to the cask-4.8% … Stone are sending Smoked Porter with vanilla … BrewDog Dogma and Paradox (Isle Of Arran) … Heavy Seas will be supplying firkins of Loose cannon with fresh local hops and a one off Pale Ale with birch! Tasty treats for sure! Plenty more to come. Checkout the design for our limited edition t-shirts that Pratt Street Ale House’s very own Shanti Rittgers designed for the event, pretty cool eh?
New On Cask
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
“Whole Lotta Rosie Jacob’s Summer Celebration” by AC/DC Jacob
Wanna tell you a story
‘Bout a beer I know
When it comes to drinkin’
Oh, it steals the show
Ain’t exactly a lite beer
Ain’t exactly small
8.8% abv, 27 lbs of hops
You Could say it’s got it all
Now on cask at the Ale House, Jacob's Summer Celebration on Oak
Jacob says “come get some!” The regular draft will be on sometime soon, as soon as tap space opens up anyway.
The Long Haul Part 3 (The Last Word From The GBBF)
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
American Cask Ale At The GBBF
Les has now returned from his adventures in London and below is his final report from The Great British Beer Festival. Great stuff, many thanks to Les for taking the time to keep us informed.
By Friday morning, all but 4-5 of the American cask ales were gone, about half the bottle inventory was left. All Maryland beers were gone. But the “punters” as the customers are called, still found plenty of other beers to drink. Friday is typically the busiest day at the festival and I call it “foreign” day because it’s when lots of folks from other countries in Europe show up and several don’t speak much English. Luckily beer drinking is universal. As long as they have a pint in their hands, they’re usually happy. Just to give you an idea of how busy Friday was, the festival was open from Noon-10:30. During those 10 hours, we averaged pulling 145 pints per minute! That’s double the festival overall of 75 pints per.
Saturday was a slower day. Less crowded mainly because folks know the selection will be smaller on the last day. Still, of the 700 ales, ciders and foreign beers we started with, there were still over 250 different beers to select from at the start of Saturday. Our organizer said Friday night that if anyone complained about selection on Saturday to tell them to come see him After they had sampled all 250!
Just some stats for the overall festival. We broke a record for attendance. Just shy of 67,000 “punters” through the doors in 5 days. They drank over 200,000 pints of beer. And over 75,000 pints of urine were pumped from the pot-o-pots (this didn’t include the built-in facilities in the hall). As they say, “Beer – you only rent it!”.
The Long Haul (American Cask Beer In England, Part 1)
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
A cask of 3 Lions Ale bound for England
You may recall from an earlier post that, for the first time, I have sent a firkin of Oliver Ale to the Great British Beer Festival. Here’s the story so far….
The Great British Beer Festival, held at London’s Earls Court between August 3rd and 7th is without doubt England’s largest beer festival and will be serving over 700 Real Ales, Ciders and beers from around the world. This year 82 firkins were shipped to the festival from the U.S., up from 54 in 2009, a reflection of the increasing importance of American craft beer in the world marketplace. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to attend the GBBF (I last visited in 2000) and the last time I had beer at the festival was when I poured my Blonde Ale for my former employer, The Firkin Brewery in 1999. It was with great interest therefore that I read last year of the efforts of the folks at “Soft Spile”, responsible for the task of shipping American casks to England. I contacted Mike at Soft Spile to express my interest in sending a firkin to GBBF and in early April Mike started to contact breweries to invite their participation. Local co-ordination was provided by Mike Roy at Franklin’s Brewery. Soft Spile began shipping empty firkins to participating breweries in May. Regional consolidation points were organised from which casks were shipped to New England, the local one being the Heavy Seas brewery at which filled firkins were required to be in place by June 18th. I decided to send a cask of 3 Lions Ale aged with American White Oak largely because I thought that, being relatively high in alcohol, it would be best suited to the long journey! 3 Lions Ale, gyle # 3289 was brewed on June 3rd and a firkin filled on June 12th (oak being placed directly in the cask). The cask was sent over to the folks at Heavy Seas and from there was shipped with the other local firkins to New England for forwarding to the UK by the 3rd week of June. Unfortunately, over carbonation of some casks led to failure of keystones / shives which resulted in the shipment being refused at port and the shipping deadline (first week of July) being missed. This is not totally unexpected of course. Remember, cask conditioned ales contain living yeast and are subject to further fermentation (a vital part of producing a well conditioned beer). In a situation such as this, where the casks may be subject to prolonged agitation and excessive temperatures, casks with high yeast counts and/or high amounts of residual fermentable material may undergo an unusually active secondary fermentation, causing high volumes of CO2 to be present in the beer, and this may lead to the internal pressure of the cask causing beer to leak from the shive or keystone or, in the worst case scenario, for the shive or keystone to be blown out of the cask! A quick clean-up response from the folks at Soft Spile saved the day and a rescheduled shipment was loaded on July 17th and the shipment arrived and cleared customs in Liverpool on July 27th. From there the beer was bound for London and the expert hands of the bar managers of CAMRA. The American Beer will be showcased in the Bieres Sans Frontieres which is comprised of 3 bars, the German & Czech Bar, the Belgian & Dutch Bar and the USA & Rest Of The World Bar (sponsored by Sierra Nevada). I’ll post an update following the festival’s conclusion.
read more about the GBBF at http://gbbf.camra.org.uk/festivalinfo and for an English take on the American craft beer at this year’s festival see http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/american-craft-ales-brewed-in-the-usa-2036768.html.
Cheers
Steve
The Friday Question
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Brew day 5 for the week sees me finishing with a Summer Light Ale, thankfully. It’s been unbearably hot in the brewery as you can imagine, so I’m very happy that the mash to be dug out later is minimal. I’ve also brewed a Bishop’s Breakfast, two batches of Ironman Pale Ale and an Old Habit. Next week looks to be equally busy as I’ll be brewing an Irish Red Ale, Strongman Pale Ale, 3 Lions, 3 Spires and Blonde Ale. Today I’ll also be racking firkins of Golden Glory, a 5.5%abv wheat ale brewed with root ginger which will be going to Metropolitan, Frisco Grille, ChurchKey and Meridian Pint so look out for those. The remainder will be transferred to conditioning and will be carbonated next Tuesday and on tap at The Ale House on Wednesday.
By-the-way, new on cask @ The Ale House today is the Pagan Porter with vanilla beans. There’s one firkin only so get it while you can. It’s soft and smooth with wonderful hints of chocolate, coffee and, of course, vanilla. I am in love with this beer!
On cask now ... Pagan Porter with Vanilla ... Glorious!
O.K., onto the Friday Question. Last week I asked how much Jacob (my baby boy) would weigh as of his doctors appointment on Wednesday. The prize is a growler of Jacob’s Summer Celebration (released in a couple of weeks), a bottle of ’08 Fuller’s Vintage Ale and a bottle of ’08 Stone Double Bastard …. a nice little haul, I’m sure you’ll agree. The little man turned out to be 9lb 14oz (and 22 inches long by-the-way) which makes Brandon the winner, congratulations sir. This week I’ll be giving away 2 more bottles from our stash, Bell’s Batch 9000 and Three Floyds Black Sun Stout as well as a growler of our Golden Glory.
you could be drinking these next week!
The question is this …. as I mentioned in previous posts, the Golden Glory, released next Wednesday, is brewed with root ginger (which is chopped and suspended in the boiling wort) … what you need to know is how much ginger is used in a 7 barrel brew? As usual, please submit your answer via the comment option below. Good luck…. sort of…. I’ll be honest with you here, I hope that nobody gets close because I really want to drink that Three Floyds Stout!
Mid Week Round Up
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
It’s been a busy week so far. We’ve brewed a Pagan Porter and Jacob’s Summer Celebration thus far, an Ironman Pale Ale today and Golden Glory on Friday. The Golden Glory is a wheat ale brewed with root ginger, obviously a glorious golden color, 5.2% abv, a great Summer Ale. I’m taking a break from brewing tomorrow as I’ll be heading to D.C. in the afternoon for Brew At The Zoo (http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ActivitiesAndEvents/Celebrations/Brew/default.cfm) where we’ll be pouring Bulldog Bitter, 3 Lions Ale, Ironman Pale Ale and Summer Light Ale with vanilla. It should be a fun event, sold out already I believe. This weekend sees Christmas In July at T-Bonz Grille (http://tbonzgrille.com/images/xmas-in-july-2010.gif) with the return of their Pints & Pancakes extravaganza. We’ll have a firkin of Bishop’s Breakfast oatmeal stout infused with coffee beans there, a perfect breakfast beer! Thursday’s firkin at Frisco Grille will be our Three Spires Ale, a hoppy golden ale, 5% abv, a real thirst quencher. For those of you in DC we’re sending over firkins of Dark Horse, Bulldog Bitter and Three Spires to Meridian Pint, go get some!
Cheers
Steve
Maryland Breweries At The Great British Beer Festival
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
I’m long overdue for a visit to the UK …. the last time I was there was May 2007!!!! As, until recently, I was working the brewery solo, taking an extended vacation (actually, even taking a day off) was a challenge! My last UK visit involved stockpiling huge amounts of beer and then stopping production for 3 weeks … a logistical nightmare to say the least. Even now that I have a part time assistant (welcome to new Oliver brewer Pat) I still can’t seem to get away. However, I’m pleased to announce that in August I will be in London in spirit at least , that is to say my beer will be! This year there will be a strong showing from regional brewers at the Great British Beer Festival thanks to the folk at www.softspile.com and local co-ordination from Mike at Franklins Brewery. The festival plays host to beers from far and wide, many from the States and there will be a judging of the Champion American Beer of the Festival. I admit, I’m not sure which other breweries are involved or what they’ll be sending but Oliver’s will be represented by a cask of Oak Aged 3 Lions (returning to it’s spiritual home, sort of). Of course I’d like to say I’ll be there with it but that’s unlikely (although feel free to petition the owners of the brewery to send me over there for a long weekend!). It’s a great step forward for the local cask ale scene which continues to grow in stature.
New On Cask
Monday, May 17th, 2010
Now on the Brewer’s Choice beer engine at The Pratt Street Ale House is the Bishop’s Coffee Stout, our Bishop’s Breakfast oatmeal stout infused with Mocha Java coffee beans. Coming up soon will, of course, be the Channel Crossing Belgian Bitter (released on Thursday, full details will be posted later today) and then we’ll have a cask of Strongman Pale Ale (batch # 2, 8.6% abv) dry hopped with Maryland grown Chinook.
Mid Week Round Up
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Can’t believe it’s only Wednesday, surely it should be Friday by now, oh well. Monday at Victoria Gastro Pub was fun, thanks to everyone who came out. I was pleased with the way batch #1 of Hot Monkey Love turned out. You’ll see it popping up in a few of your favorite craft beer bars pretty soon (Judge’s Bench, Frisco Grille and Metropolitan have all taken delivery, more to follow). After last weeks 6 brew-day extravaganza we’re aiming for a more manageable 4 this week …. Ironman Pale Ale, Old Habit, Amber Ale and Best Bitter. Obviously there’s a lot of processing of last weeks brews to do as well. It’s sort of a case of musical brew tanks … as one batch is kegged the tank is prepped to make room for the next, which then frees up a conditioning tank for a batch from FV, which then frees up the FV for that days brew. Some days 3 or 4 seperate batches are criss-crossed around the brewery!
I’ve been filling a lot of firkins as well. 5 (Best and ESB) are going out to ChurchKey, 4 (Cherry Blossom Ale, Dry Hopped Blonde, 3 Lions and Dark Horse) to the 2 Pizzeria Paradiso locations and a firkin of Ironman Pale Ale dry hopped with Bramling Cross went out to Frisco Grille. Yummy!
Don’t forget that tomorrow night @ 5pm we’ll be pouring the super limited “My Monkey’s Got Wood” (only 1 firkin) and selling the equally limited t-shirt (only 27 available, $20) at the Pratt Street Ale House. The Monkey will be at the special price of $3 for a 10 oz snifter until 7pm. Come along and get some wood!
On the beer engine Thursday from 5pm