Yours for Good Fermentables ™

Monday, February 08, 2010

Clamps & Gaskets: Roundup for Week 5

Week 5
31 January 2010 - 6 February 2010

2010.02.06
The big story of the week was the monster blizzard that hit the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore area. My post, with links to news stories: http://tinyurl.com/ygktjwk
2010.02.06
Five Ways to Cook With Beer — Super Bowl Style. http://bit.ly/cphZie
2010.02.06
Twitter BeerEd (ucation) continues, via Ray Daniels of Cicerone.org. Better brewing with chemistry: some molecules (kokumi) e.g. calcium, have no flavor but enhance other flavors.
2010.02.05
It's the taste! A succinct lesson on the differences between ales and lagers. http://adjix.com/v5zi

2010.02.05
American cask beer festivals: your D.I.Y. guide. Posted for NERAX and The Session -beer Blogging Friday. http://bit.ly/bw09PD.
2010.02.05
Twitter #FollowFriday for beer, food, and nightlife in Washington, D.C. @fritzhahn @goingoutgurus.
2010.02.05
Twitter #FollowFriday - Astronaut Soichi Noguchi @Astro_Soichi tweets photographs of Earth from the International Space Station. http://bit.ly/cW1Y1R
2010.02.04
The Session; Beer Blogging Friday #36: Cask-Conditioned Beer http://bit.ly/arhOnj
2010.01.04
Scottish brewery Brewdog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin was the world's strongest 'beer' at 32% abv. It has been bested by 25% by German brewery Schorschbräu's Schorschbock beer at 40% abv. http://bit.ly/ctV6us
2010.02.03
Today in 1959: The Day the Music Died. http://bit.ly/2M3VT3

Brian Strumke (r);
Volker Stewart, owner Brewers Art (c); Chris Cashell, brewer, Brewers Art (l)

2010.02.02
Baltimore Maryland has a new brewery: Stillwater Artisanal Ales; Brian Strumke, brewer. http://bit.ly/cdQGOr

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Clamps and Gaskets is a weekly wrap-up of stories not posted at Yours For Good Fermentables.com. Most deal with beer (or wine, or whisky); some do not. But all are brief, and many are re-posts from my Twitter account: twitter.com/cizauskas.
The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

The Real Ale Festival, 1996-2003

The topic of this month's The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is Cask-Conditioned Ale. In addition to inviting beer bloggers to contribute, I reached out to non-blogging beer folk (and, yes, they are many).

Ray Daniels sent along this recollection.

In 1996, I led colleagues from the Chicago Beer Society in setting up the Real Ale Festival which we ran seven times through 2003. Each time, it was the largest gathering of cask ales ever assembled in the US--and most likely the largest ever gathered outside Britain. It still holds the record as the largest competition of cask ales ever conducted on this side of the Atlantic. I met Tom Cizauskas during those days and he asked me for some memories from those days. Here are some brief recollections from the festival.

1996: 32 entries in a rag-tag array of “casks”: Sankey kegs, Hoff-Stevens kegs (still pretty common in those days), 5-gallon corny kegs (a rare size in commercial brewing then) and even some really old “Golden Gate” style kegs. We put the American beers up against the imported entries and Fuller’s London Pride won. In addition to the fest, we had London publican Mark Dorber over to judge and talk about the preparation and keeping of cask ale.

l-r: Ray Daniels, organizer, festival director;
Mark Dorber, master cellarman;
Tomme Arthur, brewer; Steve Hamburg, co-organizer, festival cellarmaster.
Photo courtesy of Steve Hamburg.

1997: We mandated use of “firkins” for every entry allowing easier handling and gravity dispense so that we didn’t need scores of beer engines. (Sales of firkins took off as a result.) As I recall, 98 beers in total were served. Judging was done by US brewers in multiple categories. We had a homebrewed real ale competition too! Educational sessions from Alan Pugsley and others took an entire morning covering how to prepare and manage firkins. One woman who attended came and asked for her money back after being there for 10 minutes because she couldn’t find any cask-conditioned Miller Lite.

Judging at the RAF, 1997.
1998: We moved to a convention center in the suburbs and nearly went broke between the costs and horrible weather. But, we had Michael Jackson in to speak and judge and our firkin count was into the mid-100s. We also offered bottle-conditioned beers for the first time. At this point the festival limited the number of cask entries breweries could send as we simply would not have been able to accommodate all the casks otherwise.We took an interval of 16 months between this fest and the next, moving the event from the fall to late winter.

2000-2002: We moved to the recently opened Goose Island brewpub in Wrigleyville where the fest would be held for three years. Here the festival prospered and took on an international reputation. Despite the close quarters we had people coming from all over the country and from several countries outside the US to attend. Signs of the fest still remain on the ceiling in one room where an over-conditioned keg spewed its contents in a geyser more than 15 feet high.

2003: The last year of the Real Ale Festival as such, was held in a vintage warehouse building at an inner city steel mill. Smokers found still-hot steel forms in the parking lot to huddle around for warmth and festival goers had two floors of cask stillaging to explore. We tapped 232 casks that year, including 32 imported from England that were served at their own special bar. It was a glorious year and we looked forward to returning to the same venue for additional years of the fest. Sadly, that was not to be. Due to licensing issues, we were denied further use of that space. We had looked for years for places where we might do the event as it grew, but there simply wasn’t anyplace suitable. Proper presentation of cask ales requires several days of stillaging before serving and we simply couldn’t find a space in Chicago that would surrender their facility for a full week at a price that we could afford on the revenues from a two-day festival.

The remnants of this festival live on in an annual cask ale event put on by the Chicago Beer Society called “Night of the Living Ales.” The event sells out so quickly that non-members rarely have a chance a tickets.

Among his many accomplishments, Ray Daniels is the author of Designing Great Beers, the past director of the Brewers Association Craft Beer Marketing Program, and the creator and director of the beer sommelier school- Cicerone Certification Program.

***********************************

The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.

Pic(k) of the Week: Snowmageddon

Snowmageddon!

This weekend's blizzard marked only the third time in a hundred years that the Washington, D.C. area has been hit with two double-digit snowfalls in one winter season. The official Washington D.C. total as recorded at Washington National Airport was 17.8", the 4th largest storm in recorded history for D.C., and the 3rd highest winter total on record.

Baltimore-Washington International set a new all time record for a two-day event. Dulles International Airport reported 32.4 inches.

The snow began falling at 10am on Friday, 5 February. Here, on my deck in northern Virginia, the tally was 22 inches by 1pm, and the total backyard accumulation by 5pm, when the snow stopped falling, was 22.5 inches.

The season's first snowstorm in December —dubbed 'Snowpocalypse'— dumped 16.4 inches at Washington National Airport, with much higher totals elsewhere in the area.

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Snow accumulation data from the Washington Post's Capital Weather Guys.
More snowmageddon photos: here.
Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos.

Friday, February 05, 2010

A Field Guide to Cellarmanship

Once our firkins arrive to our warehouse, coming out of a refrigerated container, we guarantee 7 weeks shelflife (unbroached) when kept at 42-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Within 72 hours after I have finished adding the finings (stateside as rather then at the brewery in the UK; this markedly adds to the shelflife), orders go out to our wholesalers, combined with case and keg product.

After taking the firkin out of “cold storage” (should never be colder then 45 degrees F if for any appreciable length of time), you then want to bring the cask up to cellar/serving temperature of 51 – 56 degrees F. At this rising temperature, the finings are most effective in attracting yeast and together they SLOWLY sink to the bottom forming a bed of sediment.

It is best to stillage the cask (position firmly on it’s side on wooden chocks like a wine barrel so that the small opening where the tap is inserted at “6 o’clock” and the large opening is pointing up) a full 48 hours before intended serving time. Anywhere from 12 to 24 hours later, release the extraneous CO2 by knocking a sterile soft spile (porous, balsam wood peg) through the recess in the center of the shive (larger of the two closures which is pointing up while the firkin is on its side). This recessed area (called the tut), as well as the keystone (plug of small opening) must be sterilized. Beer may foam (also called fob) through this peg. If the peg becomes saturated, replace with a dry one until fobbing has stopped.

Then, as soon as possible, hammer a sterile (or “beer clean’) cask tap through the keystone (thereby puncturing it) and hammer tightly into the opening, be careful not to drive too far as the keystone may crack. After tapping, it’s best to draw off at least one pint for sampling to test for product failure and to allow some headspace for the beneficial oxidation (“conditioning’) to take place. The soft peg may now be replaced with a hard peg to maintain the CO2 in solution until it is time to serve and also to prevent any additional air to touch the surface area of the beer inside the cask.

About 48 hours after putting the cask on stillage, following the above steps, you will be ready to serve. Very complex or high gravity ales will need longer then 24 hours to “condition out” (allow the brewer intended flavors to develop and let some of the wacky esters blow off). The general rule states to use:

Soft pegs - while the cask is being served
Hard pegs - for overnight storage

(Air replaces the beer that is drawn off by gravity or pulled with a beer engine. Otherwise a vacuum would occur).

Cask ale needs to be tasted every day before being put on sale, especially as you get to Day 3,4,… after putting it on. The surface area to volume ratio increases and therefore the depreciation of the remaining beer increases exponentially.

Ron Fischer is the Division Manager of the Cask Ale Collection for B. United International. Reprinted with permission.

***********************************

The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.

Still crazy about cask ale after all these years

Chicago was once home to America’s premier cask ale event, The Real Ale Festival, now sadly fading into history. Starting from humble beginnings in October 1996, RAF gradually grew to become one of the most anticipated festivals on the calendar of any serious beer geek. As a co-founder and head cellarman of that event, I have a unique perspective on cask ale in America and its growth in popularity.

Hard to believe, but the first Real Ale Festival featured just 32 beers, and over half of them were served from Golden Gate, Sanke, and Hoff Stevens kegs. Only 4 of the 16 American breweries managed to provide actual casks (Bridgeport, Middle Ages, Highlander, Shipyard)! But surely the highlight of the event was the shipment of firkins flown in from England: Marston's Pedigree, Oyster Stout, and Owd Roger; Young's Special Bitter and Fuller's ESB.

We would never have been able to get any of those English beers without the incredible assistance of Mark Dorber, then the famed landlord of the White Horse on Parsons Green in London and a widely recognized expert on real ale. English brewers initially balked when Ray Daniels and I approached them about getting beers, but when we mentioned that Mark would be arranging the critical equipment and directing the cellaring, they yielded. The USA was a cask ale desert, and no self-respecting English brewer was going to trust a Yank to look after his beers.

We must have done something right, because we never had a problem getting beers after that. The Fuller’s brewery proudly displayed their Best of Show medal in their Hock Cellar and the CAMRA newsletter What’s Brewing said "It looks like a CAMRA beer festival, it tastes like a CAMRA beer festival..."

Beginning in 1997 we required that all beers submitted for the festival come in actual firkins to facilitate uniform handling and serving of every entry. Despite this new requirement, our second festival drew three times as many entries as the first and established this event as the largest gathering of cask-conditioned ales anywhere outside of Britain (only the Great British Beer Festival and the Peterborough Beer Festival offered more at the time). At our last RAF in 2003 we served 220 casks of real ale from 21 states and the District of Columbia, including 16 beers from 6 UK breweries.

Life as a cellarman was always entertaining in those early years. Certain breweries (which shall remain un-named) were renowned for priming their beers so vigorously that soft spiling often risked the loss of an eye and inevitably included a beer shower. That’s when I learned to always wear glasses when spiling. I also learned to keep a box of towels handy, as the fountain that shot forth from the soft spile could splatter the cross beams on a 12-foot ceiling and spray everything within a 15-foot radius.

Luckily only a handful of beers were this dangerous, as beers this lively were almost impossible to serve properly once the festival was underway. RAF always had a professional judging, which meant we always aimed to get all of the beers properly conditioned and bright when judging began. Unfortunately, some beers were still “working” in the cask when judge samples were poured.

After a while, most breweries worked out their kinks and managed to ship us beers that were well-conditioned but not explosive. It became more boring, perhaps, but better for all concerned, on both sides of the bar.

One of my required activities that always drew a crowd was the quality walk-through, where beers were sampled and assessed grades in condition, clarity, and overall quality. The system I used was borrowed (stolen) from Mark Dorber and proved extremely helpful in anticipating problems and providing suitable feedback to judges and consumers.

The process is actually quite quick: you pour off the first pint, then draw a sample and visually assess condition and clarity; take a short sniff to check for off aromas; sample a sip for off flavors; and yes, usually you spit it out. This always seemed to piss off other volunteers, who looked at spitting as something you did at a wine tasting. But the fact is, you simply can’t drink every beer at a festival (by 2003, these duties were split between 3 of us, but that still meant we would each check ~70 beers!). Eventually I learned to plan these walkthroughs when fewer people were around, as too many volunteers wanted to “help” out with the tasting.

Of course, when you’re working in a pub environment with a maximum of 5-6 casks on, taste away!

Sadly, RAF faded away after years of various venue issues. Most of the original equipment we used - the cooling jackets, glycol chillers, handpumps, taps – were sold off. But the success we achieved over 7 years was still impressive. We know that we never wavered when it came to the quality and presentation of the beers. I was especially proud when Mark Dorber came back in 2002 and said we were really doing things right. And we’re still doing a nice real ale event in Chicago – it’s just smaller (around 40 or so casks), but the beer quality is still something we’re proud of.

Slowly, surely, real ale has been catching on in America. At the very least, brewers have better access to casks, cellaring supplies, taps, and handpumps (Paul Pendyck’s UK Brewing Supplies has been a great resource). But to my mind, too many brewpubs and beer bars still lack the cellaring training and experience or worse, the desire to serve cask ale at its most elegant best. Many breweries continue to struggle to find the right balance of yeast and/or primings in the cask. A lot of places didn’t bother with finings at all, or even if they did, they didn’t give them a chance to work their magic.

l-r: Ray Daniels, organizer; Mark Dorber; Tomme Arthur, brewer; Steve Hamburg.

The most common problem I see today is that beers haven’t been given enough time to develop conditioning and drop bright in the cask. I understand the need to turn over beer quickly in a bar or brewpub, but come on – what’s your rush? Let the beer finish. As I often heard Mark Dorber say, “cask-conditioning is a marathon, not a sprint.” Most beers, even the most intensely dry-hopped “tea-bagged” IPA can be served bright if given enough time. If you’re not allowing proper time for conditioning and brightness, why bother with cask-conditioning at all?

The job of the cellarman is to use his/her tools and experience to bring out the greatest beauty of every beer on offer. If you’re willing to drink unfinished cloudy pints, you don’t need a cellarman at all – just throw the cask on the bar, tap it, and be done with it. But whatever it is, it’s beer from a cask, not cask-conditioned beer.

Unfortunately, too many American beer drinkers have only been exposed to a more false representation of real ale, where the “show” takes precedence over the beauty and elegance of the beer in the glass. Casks are rolled and sloshed around right before tapping, as if they were the stainless steel (or plastic) equivalent of a bottle of Bavarian hefeweizen. Patrons are too often told that real ale is “supposed to be cloudy” because it’s unfiltered. Sometimes beer that’s been overspiled and flat is pumped through a tight sparkler to give it the head it should have had without such “special treatment.” We can all do without this sort of thing.

Cask ale done right is a remarkable drink. Let’s not settle for style over substance.

Steve Hamburg is an award-winning homebrewer, an author of articles on brewing, and a long-time member of the renowned Chicago Beer Society. As he has written above, he had been the Cellarmaster for the former US Real Ale Festival. Now, he is an organizer of another annual real ale event, Day & Night of the Living Ales (now in its 6th year), scheduled this year for March 6 at Goose Island Wrigleyville.

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The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.

Homebrewed Real Ale

Writing this as the first inch of an expected 20 inch snowfall begins to accumulate here in the DC burbs of northern Virginia and borrowing the melody from 'Frosty The Snowman', I author a new lyric, "There must have been some magic in that firkin cask we found 'cause when we drank the ale inside we began to dance around."

But wait, there's another song to screw with, "I've never been to England but I kinda like the Real Ales. Up here In NoVa, not Arizona, what does it matter?"

I'm ashamed to admit it but I've never been to England although I've had the pleasure of drinking plenty of imported cask ale that has made the trip here to enlightened DC bars as well as 100s of homebrewed real ales and a few local pub-brewed commercial examples over the last decade. I've been homebrewing for 17 years and many of my creations have been brewed in the cask ale tradition.

Wendell Ose (l); Nick Funnell (r)

I've had the good fortune to win homebrew club Brewers United for Real Potables BJCP sanctioned Real Ale Championship in 2000 and 2007. The 2007 winning beer, an English Mild Ale, made me eligible to enter the 2008 GABF Pro-Am Competition in Denver. English ex-pat Nick Funnell, head brewer for local Great American Restaurants' Sweetwater Tavern, allowed me to brew a 15 barrel batch with him that advanced to the final 6 beers of 58 GABF entries from around the US. I based my recipe on one Nick had contributed to a Brewing Techniques Magazine Beer Styles article back in the 90s.

My homebrew club, The Wort Hogs, has its 4th Annual Real Ale Party scheduled later this month so I brewed two ales for that event this week, a Best Bitter and a Northern English Brown Ale, a sweet version that's a close cousin to my Mild Ale. (Btw, recipes and process info available on request.)

I love to brew real ale as much as drink it, probably because of my short attention span. You can brew one today and be drinking it at its peak in 7 to 10 days. Now that's fresh beer and freshness and liveliness are what cask ale is all about. A well made, Ordinary Bitter at about 3.5% ABV, naturally and lightly carbonated can be magic in a glass, magic in a bottomless glass for that matter since it seems like you can drink them one after another and still walk/drive away safe, sound and feeling good all around. If you're drinking a lovely English-style ale and it seems like you simply can't enjoy enough of it, chances are you're drinking a cask ale at its best.

Find one or brew one, and as The Great One [the late Michael Jackson, the beer writer] suggested, "do it a favor and drink it."

Wendell Ose is an award-winning homebrewer, and an avid supporter of local breweries.

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The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.

The Education of a Cask Ale Brewer

I started 1993 in flux. A couple of years previously, after 3 years in the laboratory pursuing a PhD (Biochemistry), I came to the realization that I had grown to hate research. By way of a catalyst/escape route my friend Peter's band (Adorable) secured a record deal and were about to embark on a nationwide tour, and Peter asked if I'd care to come along and sell the merchandise. At that time the choice was simple and the answer was yes, so, one evening, I quietly put my paperwork in order, left the lab and never returned.

Fast forward to 1993. I had experienced a lot traveling with Adorable as their guitar tech across the U.K., Europe and The States as well as working for a couple of other bands but, as I neared my thirties, I decided that maybe I should get a "real" job. Adorable were taking forever writing and recording their second album and I was kicking around Coventry, unemployed.

I scanned the local paper's employment section and an advertisement jumped off the page! The Firkin Brewery pub chain was opening a brewpub in Coventry at what was then The Hen & Chickens (now to be The Fowl & Firkin) and was seeking a brewer. I had no experience of brewing but I reasoned that I had a knowledge of fermentation technology from my studies and that I had certainly enjoyed my fair share of Sam Smiths at my local so ... what the heck, why not? I mailed out my curriculum vitae and waited.

Turns out that I didn't have to wait long. Within a couple of weeks I was at a round table interview with David Rawstorne, head brewer of the Holt,Plant & Deakin Brewery. It was not a pleasant experience. Rawstorne was abrasive and, in response to my declaration that my scientific background and experience of fermentation technology would benefit me in the position, responded that (I'm paraphrasing here) that science crap wouldn't help me in the real world!

I left somewhat disheartened and was therefore surprised that I was called for a second interview the following week, this time with Rawstorne and the area manager for the pub chain. Although this was a much more formal interview it was also a considerably more enjoyable experience. Rawstorne was positively genial. and I left feeling that I had done reasonably well for myself. I interviewed on Wednesday, received a job offer on Friday, and started on Monday.

My first two weeks were spent at the Holt,Plant & Deakin Brewery in Wolverhampton with Rawstone and brewer Dave Roberts. During this time I wrote down pretty much everything that was said to me as I followed these veteran brewers about their daily business. I watched every aspect of the brew day keenly and spent much time on the more mundane (though nonetheless important) tasks such as cleaning tanks and removing shives from casks and cleaning them for filling until I was finally racking casks of Holts Entire Butt Bitter.

Following this brief training period I was dispatched to my own brewery (capacity 5 imperial barrels) in Coventry. The first day involved cleaning .... lots of it. The brewery had been installed more than a month previously and had been gathering dust since then.

The second day was brew day. Rawstorne joined me in the morning and after a quick inspection of the brew kit we mashed in. The day was long. This was my first brew day ever so I was extremely nervous and was slow and methodical in everything that I did. Still, under Rawstorne's excellent guidance, I got through it and the first brew day was done!

At the end of the day Dave slapped me on the back, wished me good luck and informed me that he'd stop by next week! I couldn't believe it! Here I was, one day of brewing experience under my belt, and I was now responsible for several thousand pounds worth of equipment and the task of supplying 3 different cask ales to each of 3 Firkin pubs. Steep ... Learning ... Curve!

The first solo brew didn't go quite so well. I had incorrectly judged my hot liquor temperature or liquor:mash ratio and as a result hadn't attained very good conversion in the mash. What should have been a 1.050 ale came in at 1.044, way out of spec. for the product (we had a leeway of +/- 1.001 for original gravity) but hey, on the positive side, I'd just brewed my first seasonal beer!

A week later, I racked the brew into kilderkins, and crossed my fingers. One week after that it was being served at the pubs and proved a great success, selling out in a timely fashion. Needless to say I made sure that I didn't make the same mistake again and subsequent brews all came in on spec.

Admittedly, for a long time, I was nervous in my job. I wasn't really a brewer. I was someone who worked in a brewery, brewing beer to set recipes. Over time I gained confidence in my own abilities and, as I learned more about my craft, began to develop my own style and recipes.

It is with great pride that I recall the first time my pub was featured in CAMRA's "Good Beer Guide" and also the time that the Coventry And North Warwickshire Branch of CAMRA presented me with an award "for brewing consistently fine ales and also brewing the first festive beer to sell out at Coventry Beer Festival 1996". I felt truly blessed that I had stumbled into the world of brewing!

During my time at the brewery I studied for a Diploma in Brewing from The Institute Of Brewing & Distilling in London.

In 1997 I moved to a larger brewery, the 10bl system at The Phantom & Firkin in Loughborough, where I remained until the company was bought by Punch Taverns/Bass and closed down in 1999. During my time with the Firkin brewery I brewed many different cask ales, variations of some of which I still brew today (Old Habit, Dark Horse, Blonde Ale).

We brewed only cask ale, (I had never even touched a keg until I started working for Oliver Brewery), to very strict standards which I think has served me well in what is still something of a niche market in the U.S. At the firkin brewery quality and consistency were, of course, of the utmost importance. All casks were labeled with the fill date, gyle number and fill number. The brewery was not allowed to ship any cask that was more than 14 days old. The pub was not allowed to sell any cask more than 28 days old and casks were to be sold within 3 days of first pour, regardless of cask size.

In keeping with CAMRA's archaic (in my opinion) guidelines for eligibility into the Good Beer Guide, pubs did not use cask breathers. I performed regular finings trials on the beers that I produced using Imhoff cones for sediment measurement to ensure that my fining regime resulted in optimal clarity. Anything less than perfect clarity was not tolerated and was considered unsaleable and, in the rare instance that this problem arose, it would require re-fining in trade and, if that did not rectify the problem, then the beer would be returned to the brewery.

Each month we also submitted a sample of each product type to the laboratory at Burton-upon-Trent for analysis. Samples were analyzed to ensure that the original and final gravity, alcohol content, and colour were within acceptable limits, and that the beer was free of microbiological contamination.

In order to ensure proper handling and dispense of our products each brewer was also required to perform quarterly cellar audits of the pubs that he/she supplied, a time consuming process as I, for example, supplied thirteen pubs within a 50 mile radius of the brewery.

The standards to which we held our beer in the U.K. are very different to the approach of many craft breweries towards cask ale in the U.S. Clarity of the product is often not considered an issue by either the brewer, bar, or the customer, with many brewers not fining their casks (or not properly fining their casks), or the bar that serves the beer not venting and tapping the product in a timely fashion with the cask not being allowed an adequate period of time for the yeast to settle out.

Likewise the customer seems to accept being served a cloudy pint, sometimes thick with yeast, as the norm, a situation that I have not fully adjusted to when I am myself the customer, and to this day I will choose my cask ale carefully to avoid such beer.

As the host brewer for the Chesapeake Real Ale Festival I have handled many casks from many breweries and have dealt with cask ales of all conceivable qualities from the sublime to the ridiculous. At last year's festival, I had the unfortunate experience of trying to tap a cask that was so incredibly over conditioned that it blew the tap out of my hand! A beer shower at 3am is not a pleasant experience, especially when the beer has been "dry hopped" with hop pellets that cover me in green sludge!

Firkin with a transparent 'head'

It is reassuring, though, that the market for cask ales is increasing, that bars such as ChurchKey in D.C. can maintain an impressive turnover of casks from 5 beer engines and that , most importantly, the beer is well handled. The increasing number of venues for cask conditioned beer will clearly convince more brewers that cask ale is a viable product and with that will increase the awareness of proper techniques of production and handling of what is, after all, beer in its purest, freshest form, a true testament to the brewer's art!

Steve Jones has been the brewer and the cellarmaster for the Pratt Street Alehouse of Baltimore, Maryland (formerly known as the Wharf Rat Brewpub), since 2000. He blogs about it here.

***********************************

The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.

How I became a firkin man

I am a third generation home brewer. I was hooked on beer design and culture from before I can even remember. Real Ale begins this tale

I recall as a little boy, my dad, the biochemist, buying beer kits from Boots Pharmacy on one of our regular trips to visit family in England. He would fill a green trash can in the back corner of our basement. I remember how clean and careful he was and the brew was pretty good: real ale-unfiltered, primed and bottled in champagne bottles

When I was 15, my father’s uncle introduced me to my first all grain homebrewed ESB in his meticulously kept, proper English garden. I do not think there was a drinking age..? And dad seemed to be enjoying himself anyway.

I have had the opportunity to travel and meet people from very different backgrounds, cultures, languages and have beers with them. I've collected beer cans on many of my trips abroad, often hauling home great cardboard boxes full of cans, and even taking empty suitcases to bring back beer paraphernalia. Imagine the security problems and extra costs involved in that now!

Gardening is another passion that my father passed to me. My garden has increased in size and function every year for the past ten years. I now have the homegrown ingredients to use in my home brewing and homemade spice creations. This includes established Cascade, Centennial and Northern Brewer hops. The spice list itslef is endless. I hand pick, peel, prepare, and dry anything and everything.

In the early 80s, I was introduced to Mr. Hugh Sisson, again through my father. He was a large influence on my developing beerhood. It turned out that for years my father had been bringing fellow researchers from all over the world to Sisson's Brewpub. They would toss back a few pints of the local real ale and discuss beer with the man who really started it all in Maryland for microbreweries.

Most of my work history has involved fresh produce. I started in the Jessup Produce market working 12 hour days making sure the fresh veggies were delivered to local Baltimore restaurants. A move from wholesale to retail put me in charge of a large produce, salad, and floral section at a local food chain. I am not scared to say I can make a hell of a floral arrangement. This passion for everything fresh, clean and aesthetically pleasing to the public has been incorporated into my home brewing and casking techniques.

Six years ago, I had just graduated from UMBC with a BS in Environmental Science and had been working part-time at Clipper City for over a year. I was still very involved in home brewing and the real ale concept (unfiltered beer, dry hopped and kreusened). With photo help from Tom Cizauskas, I created a protocol for cleaning and filling casks, a “Real ale program.” Five years later this program is like a fobbing cask, bringing lots of excitement and experimentation to the Heavy Seas portfolio. Fans are so excited with real ale that Clipper City Brewing Company now owns over 150 casks –and each one my 'baby'.

And, I want each of my babies to make a lasting impression on the server and drinker, whether in New York City or a bar in Ellicott City. Maryland.

Everyone should have the opportunity to try cask conditioned ale. It is our obligation, as distributors, brewers, and fans of real ale, to educate the retailer and to generate enthusiasm amongst craft beer drinkers for this purest form of beer. This should include information about how to serve a firkin professionally, with all the pomp and circumstance each one deserves.

Creating and producing real ale is just a part of the attraction for me. It is also being part of something grand, and believing in yourself and the product.

Meeting great people, while drinking a cask conditioned Loose Cannon that has been dry hopped with local Cascade hops: that clinches the deal.

Stephen Marsh is the Cellarmaster for the Clipper City Brewing Company of Baltimore, Maryland.

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The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.

But does it matter?

While several brewers are now producing "authentic" English style cask ales that rival the quality achieved by brewers in Britain with hundreds of years of experience with the style, many are choosing to go their own way.

Either ignoring or ignorant of the "conventional" wisdom that beers served this way are traditionally delicate, nuanced, subtle, and drinkable, we're seeing some quite extreme products being pushed across American bars.

I've had ungespunget beer in Bamberg, and deliberately unfiltered beers in bottles by Harpoon, Switchback, and Mad River Brewing. In many ways, these are closer to the idea of cask ale than an inky black imperial stout in a firkin.

But does it matter? Tasty beer is tasty beer, right?

It only matters if a superbly balanced, delicately flavored, drinkable ale loses its place on a bar because the customers don't recognize it as the real thing.

Steve Parkes (c).

Already a degreed brewmaster when he arrived in the United States from the UK in 1988, Parkes opened Maryland's first post-Prohibition microbrewery. He has since consulted and brewed for several award-winning US breweries. He is the owner of and lead instructor for the American Brewers Guild brewing school.

***********************************

The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community begun by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer, and co-moderated with Jay Brooks at the Brookston Beer Bulletin.
On the first Friday of each month, a predetermined blogger hosts The Session, chooses a specific, beer-related, topic, invites all bloggers to write on it, and posts a roundup of all the responses received.

More here.