Pratt Street Ale House » cask

The Friday Question

Steve — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:57:10 +0000

Before I get on to the Friday Question I’ll just remind you that My Monkey’s Got Wood, the cask of Hot Monkey Love aged with American Oak since 4/30/09 will be on the beer engine on Valentine’s Day. Nothing says “I Love You” like a Monkey with Wood! The cask is vented, tapped and sampled and absolutely bursts with Oak flavors, more Oak than you could shake a big stick at! Despite it’s 10% a.b.v. the beer has a “soft” quality, with the underlying sweetness and oak flavors combining wonderfully and a gentle warm finish.

So on to the Friday Question. There was a good spread of answers given but, as I explained, I don’t know what the answer is myself yet. The test kit should be arriving today so we’ll send the samples off to the lab on Monday. Hopefully the turnaround time will be minimal. As soon as the analysis is back I’ll post the answer/winner.

This weeks question is a fairly simple one. As many of you know as well as distributing firkins of our ales we use kilderkins in house. A kilderkin is a cask with a volume of 18 Imperial Gallons (21.6 U.S. gallons). Despite the fact that I filled kilderkins every week when I brewed in the U.K., when I finally got some here it had been some 9 years since I’d handled one and I was shocked by how heavy they were. So, the question is this, how heavy is a full kilderkin of beer? For those of you who want to calculate the weight of beer we’ll assume that it’s Best Bitter with a specific gravity of 1.010. Obviously you’ll have to guess what the kil is made of ie stainless steel or aluminium to get an estimate of empty weight. Usual rules apply, one answer only via the comment section below, judges decision is final. In the event of a tie the first correct answer posted wins. Good luck. The winner gets one of the new Hot Monkey Love t-shirts (back print shown above) and the satisfaction that you know a piece of useless information that you’ll never get to use again!

The Friday Question

Steve — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:52:07 +0000

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

Peeping Tom Porter Now On Tap

Steve — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:30:54 +0000

The Peeping Tom Porter is now on tap At The Pratt Street Ale House. It is a very sessionable beer, 4.4% a.b.v, relatively light in body but full of roasted malt flavors, a thirst quencher for those looking for something easy drinking but with character too. It replaces William’s Winter Warmer on tap although there is a small amount of the Oak Aged version still available on cask … get it while you can!

Now on tap

The Peeping Tom will be available on cask at Frisco Grille, Columbia on Wednesday 13th January (Oliver’s Pint Night) and Bertha’s and Max’s, Fells Point on Thursday 14th January.

Mid-week update.

Steve — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:17:46 +0000

Tomorrow night our Scottish Ale will be making its cask debut at Metropolitan Coffee House and Wine Bar (902 Charles St.) for their regular Firkin Thursday event. For those of you unfamiliar with Metropolitan, it’s a wonderful neighbourhood bar/ restaurant … a solid tap line-up and fantastic food. The Firkin will be available in the upstairs bar from 6pm. The Scottish Ale returns, bigger and bolder, after a years hiatus due to the renovations at The Pratt Street Ale House last January. It’s a completely new recipe, full bodied with an underlying sweetness you’d expect from a Scottish Ale with hints of smoked and peated malt in the finish and is about 7% abv.

Next Wednesday (13th) The Peeping Tom Porter will make its cask debut at our pint night @ Frisco Grille in Columbia. Also on tap will be the Scottish Ale and 3 Lions so come along, meet the genial brewers and snag a souvenir pint glass.

The Peeping Tom will also be on cask @ Max’s Taphouse on Thursday 14th January.The Scottish Ale & Peeping Tom should be hitting the taps at the Ale House sometime next week. For those of you in the D.C. area casks of Peeping Tom, the Scottish Ale and dry hopped ESB are shipping to Churchkey and ESB should be heading to the Commonwealth Gastro Pub also.

By-the-way, I’m shamelessly promoting January as “buy the brewer a beer month” … yeah, that’s right, it’s my Birthday soon and I have now spent over a third of my life brewing beer …. how did that happen?!

Cheers for now

Steve