Posts Tagged ‘Cask Ale’
Real Ale Festival News
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
I’m very pleased to announce that due to the overwhelming demand for tickets to this coming Saturday’s Real Ale Festival at The Pratt Street Ale House, a further 25 have been made available. They are available through advance purchase ($35) through www.spbw.org . A limited number of tickets may be available on the door ($40) on a first come first serve basis. The beer line-up is as follows:
Oliver Ales : Hot Monkey Love
Oliver Ales : Oak Aged 3 Lions
Oliver Ales : Mocha Java Porter
The Brewer’s Art : Resurrection Ale infused with blackberries
Flying Dog : Gonzo Imperial Porter
Pub Dog : Golden Belgian Ale
Stillwater Artisinal Ales : Stateside Saison
Arcadia : Angler’s Ale dry hopped with Goldings
Arcadia : I.P.A. dry hopped with Cascade
Weyerbacher : Hops Infusion
and providing the container is cleared by customs in time a cask from Craigmill (Scotland).
The festival runs from noon through 5 pm and as always sampling is unlimited (until the casks are empty).
Hope to see you all on Saturday.
New on cask
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Now on the “Brewer’s Choice” beer engine is the Mocha Java Porter, 4.9% a.b.v. and bursting with coffee aroma and flavor. There’s only one firkin so get it while you can.
Mocha Java Porter on cask now!
March Madness – Firkin Style (revisited)
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Russian nesting dolls, cask style!
The hits just keep on coming. To add to the already busy cask festival friendly March our friends at Yards Brewery are also holding an event. Check out the details @ http://yardsbrewing.com/events_real-ale-invitational.asp . A good time guaranteed. We’ll also have some information regarding developments for our own festival on the 20th in the next couple of days. Also, as already posted by Tom @ http://www.yoursforgoodfermentables.com/2010/03/national-cask-ale-week-in-us.html March 29th sees the start of National Cask Ale Week in the U.K. Being a Brit and an advocate of cask ale I could not let this event pass without some celebration at The Pratt Street Ale House so for the duration of cask ale week (March 29th – April 5th) all of our 3 cask ales will be offered at the special price of $3/pint between 5pm and close. Also on Friday 2nd April we will have the famous glass-head firkin on the bar serving $2 pints, oh yeah!
Real Ale Festival Tickets Now On Sale
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
O.K. folks, the tickets for the Real Ale Festival are now on sale. To purchase them follow this link
http://www.spbw.org/springraf/
Remember tickets are strictly limited to 110 so get ‘em quick, it’s going to be a blast!
Real Ale. From this ....
to this ....
to this! Fresh and delicious!
March madness, Firkin Style
Friday, February 26th, 2010
As I’m sure you know by now, I consider a good pint of cask conditioned ale to be the Nectar of the Gods. It’s with great pleasure therefore that I’ve seen how the March calendar is shaping up in terms of cask events. As well as all of the usual cask nights at various bars in the region there are also 3 cask festivals on the horizon. The first is to be held at The General Sutter Inn in Lititz, Pa on March 12th through the 14th. Paul Pendyck of UK Brewing is running the festival in conjunction with Alex Hall, veteran organizer of many such festivals so a well organized festival with an interesting line-up of beers is guaranteed. Check out www.gotham-imbiber.com for details. The following week (March 20th) we will be holding the Real Ale Festival at The Pratt Street Ale House in conjunction with the folks of the SPBW. Tickets will be priced @ $35 for unlimited sampling and will be limited to 110 tickets only. The event will run from noon until 5pm and will be located throughout the first floor of The Ale House. As well as our own Hot Monkey Love, Oak Aged 3 Lions and Mocha Java Porter there will be casks from Arcadia (Anglers Ale w/ Goldings and IPA w/ Cascade), Weyerbacher (Hops Infusion)and casks from Stillwater, The Brewer’s Art and Flying Dog and one other to be confirmed. Tickets will be on sale through the SPBW website in the next couple of days. The weekend after that will be the Heavy Seas Real Ale Festival We really are spoiled for choice with cask conditioned ale right now, a very pleasant situation to be in!
New on cask
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Today sees the debut of the Three Spires Ale on the beer engine. It’s a hoppy little golden ale, 5% a.b.v., clean and refreshing and dangerously drinkable. Come get some!
Three Spires Ale, now on the beer engine
The Friday Question
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Before I get on to the business of The Friday Question I would like to encourage you all to check out the new Oliver Ales facebook page that I set up recently and if you feel inclined please become a fan www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/oliver-ales/288496506028?ref=ts. I’ll be posting regular updates of brewery activities, releases etc so if you want to keep abreast of what’s new and where it’ll be pouring, join us. By way of some gentle encouragement there’s going to be a “prize” draw for fans only which may be of interest to some of you. Some time in the near future I’ll be receiving a bottle of the World’s Strongest Beer (at least for now), the 41% BrewDog “Sink The Bismarck” along with their 0.5% “Nanny State”. An interesting contrast I think you’ll agree! I’ll be getting together with avid local beer bloggers www.beerinbaltimore.blogspot.com , www.beerinbaltimore.com and www.baltimorebeer.blogspot.com to taste test and review these beers and I’ll be inviting one Oliver Ales fan, chosen at random, to join us and review the beers for my blog and facebook page. Check out the facebook page for details.
So, onto last weeks question. There are several sources of published data. For example online @ http://www.nickelinstitute.org/index.cfm/ci_id/12606.htm which gives the empty and full weights for a stainless steel kilderkin as being 51lb and 236lb respectively. The book “Cellarmanship” by Ivor Clissold gives the weights as 46lb and 226 lb for stainless steel and 32lb and 212lb for aluminium. Now, as you know, we here at Oliver’s don’t take these things lightly (ha,ha!), especially when there’s one of our cool new Hot Monkey Love t-shirts at stake so we weighed one and the result is ….. drum roll …..
The weight of a full Kilderkin is 220lb
Yep, 220lb so that makes Dan the winner and, for the first time ever the answer was spot on, congratulations Dan, let me buy you a beer as well when you come in to collect your prize. By-the-way, the empty weight of our kilderkins is 37lb if you’re interested.
So, this week’s question (sticking to a theme here) is how much would a Pin of Hot Monkey Love weigh? Said pin will be featured at our Cask Ale Festival to be held at The Pratt Street Ale House on March 20th (full details will be posted next week). The festival is going to be limited to 110 tickets but you can attend as our guest if you can answer the above question correctly. As usual please post your answer via the comment section below. In the event of tied winning entries, an overall winner will be made by a random draw from the correct entries. Good luck.
Please join us at Victoria Gastro pub on Monday evening for their beer club night where you can get a sneak preview of our Biere de Garde in cask. They’ll also be pouring The Bishop’s Indulgence, Strongman Pale Ale and Coventry Cream Ale. We’ll be there and if we’re feeling generous we might just buy you a beer!
Have a great weekend.
Cheers
Steve
Three Spires Ale
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
In homage to my hometown of Coventry comes “Three Spires Ale”, a golden ale @ 5% a.b.v. It is generously hopped with English First Gold, Kent Goldings and Fuggles. Although it is going to be served as a nitro pour as a replacement for the Blackfriar Stout I have racked a number of firkins as well and these will be distributed over the next 2 weeks. I’ll keep you posted as to where and when it will be available.
Cask conditioned "Three Spires Ale" coming soon
Winter wonderland Part 2.
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
No photos this time, just look at the pictures from the last WW post and add more snow! It was a hell of a walk to the Ale House from Fells Point. A lesson quickly learned was not to bother wearing my glasses, they were covered in snow in seconds, result zero visibility. There were a lot of city trucks out though, so some of the roads weren’t too bad. What I really love about the walk is the silence! With the exception of an occasional passing vehicle or other weary pedestrian and a distant siren, the only noise was the sound of my own labored breath and the snow beneath my boots. The city looks so serene under cover of snow, so calm, it’s hard to believe that this is Baltimore, with its triple digit homicide rate etc. The main difference between today’s journey and that of Saturday was the wind today! As I neared the Ale House strong gusts of wind would blow the freshly fallen snow along the street, almost like a creeping fog, causing a momentary whiteout. It felt as if I was breathing snow!
But here I am. Monday’s Irish Red fermentation is progressing well and needs a little aeration by rousing to keep those yeast cells dividing. Yesterday’s Three Spires Ale was a little on the warm side so I’m chilling it back a little but otherwise fermentation got off to a good start. If you haven’t read the previous post, the Three Spires is going to be a new nitro pour ale available at The Ale House in place of the Blackfriar Stout, which I’m retiring for the time being. It’s a hoppy little Golden Ale @ 5% a.b.v. which should fit nicely into our portfolio. I think it will be a great cask conditioned ale also so I’ll be filling a few firkins before the bulk of the brew goes to conditioning and subsequent nitrogenation. Speaking of firkins, we’ve just bought a few new ones to add to our stockpile to try and keep up the demand for cask conditioned ale, which is showing a healthy upward trend at the moment. That makes me a happy brewer.
The Strongman Pale Ale is on tap now so when the snow stops and the pub can open again come stop by for a pint. I think you’ll like it. We should hopefully be open tomorrow, Thursday.
Stay safe and warm
Steve
The Friday Question
Friday, January 29th, 2010
The time has finally come to reveal the winner of the Tactical Nuclear Penguin. There was an incredible spread of answers, from 9 pounds sterling at the lower end to over 60 at the other. A couple of answers were pretty close but one was the clear winner. The correct answer was …. bagpipe flourish & drum roll ….
If you can’t quite make that out apologies for the poor picture quality (you’d think i-phone could do better) but the answer is 17.32. By my reckoning, that makes “Red Rob” the winner with the answer of 18.86. Congratulations sir, I will be in touch to arrange collection of your prize. For those of you who may be interested, to have it shipped directly from BrewDog to the Ale House would have been 40 pounds! I had asked my Mother to ship it to me by the quickest method regardless of cost (within reason) but she, of course, being my Mother ignored this and just sent it regular parcel air mail. She didn’t even put a “fragile” sticker on it! Clearly no respect for beer there, even though her son has been a brewer for 16 years.
So, as you may know, on Tuesday @ 6pm we will launch our latest seasonal beer, The Bishop’s Indulgence, at The Cask Ale Social at the Pratt Street Ale House. As well as having the beer on tap and on cask (aged on a little American Oak) we will have a glass ended firkin of Best Bitter dry hopped with Maryland Chinook on gravity pour in the lounge so you can see how yeast settles in the cask. The Bishop’s Indulgence will be available in 10 oz snifters for $3 and our other cask beers will be priced at $3/pint. We’ll also have an informal discussion of cask ale brewing and handling so if you have any questions about cask ale come along, have a beer and we’ll do our best to answer them. You may have read in the previous posts about the Bishop’s Indulgence that it is an 8% a.b.v. stout brewed with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans. This week’s question is simple. How many vanilla beans did I use making this brew? I want the number of vanilla beans not the weight of beans and it includes any beans that may have been used in casks. As usual, answers via the comment section please, one answer per person only. The closest answer to the correct number wins and in the event of a tie the answer posted first takes it. The prize will be a growler of The Bishop’s Indulgence. Good luck.
For those of you in the DC area, look out for the Blonde Ale dry hopped with Chinook and Dark Horse mild @ RFD and Best Bitter and Dark Horse at ChurchKey. Next week we’ll also be sending casks out to both Pizzeria Paradiso locations and more to ChurchKey. Also mark your calendar for the Strong Beer Tasting at The Brickskeller on Tues 9th February where we’ll have our last sixtel of ‘09 Hot Monkey Love. Commonwealth Gastro Pub will be hosting an Oliver Ale Beer Dinner on March 2nd (t.b.c.), more details to follow.
Have a great weekend.
Cheers
Steve