Session #36: Cask-Conditioned Beer [The Summary]

The Session: Beer Bloggging 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.

For more information, and to host a Session, go to the archive page at the Brookston Beer Bulletin

The topic for 5 February 2010 was Cask-Conditioned Beer:

beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide.

—as defined by CAMRA (the Campaign For Real Ale)
beer consumer advocacy group in the UK

I was the host for February.  In my invitation to beer bloggers, I may have rhapsodized a bit (others might say, gone on and on). In my defense, selling wine and beer may be my profession, but cask ale is my passion. 

I thank all who contributed essays. In a substantive way,  I should also thank the breweries and pubs that continue to produce and serve cask ale (and lager), and the publicans who serve it properly, and those who demonstrate their appreciation by drinking cask-conditioned beer.

Last, but not least, I should acknowledge and thank Stan Hieronymus and Jay Brooks. They have organized, encouraged, and gently cajoled to get The Session on the web, every month, since March of 2007.

You have to understand that cask-conditioned beer is not warm, flat, cloudy beer. It is cool, gently carbonated, and bright. But, most of all, it is FRESH. The point is to serve it NOW, to drink it NOW: fresh, bursting with just-prepared flavor.

Here is the summary of contributions (in no particular order).

• Mario at Brewed for Thought wrote that "The flavors leap from the glass to your palate in a way that is impossible to convey to the uninitiated. More than anything, the sense I take away from a proper pint of cask ale is satisfaction."
• Sean Inman at the Beer Search Party proposes a challenge. Cask-Conditioned Ale will become less of a "niche' in the US if more bars would offer patrons side-by-side tastings of the same beer: one cask vs. one draft.
• Jeff Wallace of the Lug Wrench Brewing Company (a 'virtual' brewery blog) praises cask-conditioned LAGERS and offers a recipe and procedure to brew them at home.
• Alex Hall, of the Gotham Imbiber, posted a valuable how-to for running a cask beer festival in the US (or anywhere): "American cask beer festivals: my story - and your D.I.Y. guide." Bookmark this.
• The Beer Nut (Enjoying beer and travel, preferably simultaneously. Based in Dublin) says: "I have a theory that this cask-is-always-best principle only holds up for beers which were designed for cask in the first place." He believes that "big hop flavours generally" don't show well in cask-conditioned form. He finds that "black beers" do better.
• Jason at A Beer in Hand hadn't always liked cask-conditioned beer (and feels that some are hurt by the warmer serving temperature) but, using two senses, found that Lagunitas Hop Stoopid on cask "really opened my eyes. ... It was like an explosion of pine in my mouth."
• Derrick Peterman at the Beer-Runner blog describes his one-night tryst with a cask of Stone Pale Ale: "One Lonely Night, Away from Home."
• Erik Lars Myers at Top Fermented describes the inner workings of a "beer engine", the handpump used to pull beer from a cask to the bar.
• Daniel Harper at his eponymous blog is succinct: "some of the whole point of cask: it's local." Cask ales are "meant to be served pretty much immediately and close by."
• Anda at Legal Libations discusses the legalities of cask-conditioned beer as regulated in the US by the TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, of the Department of Treasury).
• Alan at A Good Beer Blog once drank a 25-liter cask of homebrewed ale with two other friends, and noted in his journal that he was feeling "not burdensome the next day."
• Jimmy at HopWild can't find much cask-conditioned ale where he lives. So he brews it at home. Detailing his procedures, he promises: "It's Not Rocket Science."
• Jon at The Brew Site praises The Brewers Union Local 180, a brewpub in a small Oregon town, that brews ONLY cask-conditioned beers.
• Alexander D. Mitchell IV at Beer in Baltimore demurs at choosing a favorite cask ale. "The best line I've been able to come up with for this 'favorite' nonsense is 'the next one.' It's all about anticipation and discovery for me." Then he proves his point, looking for cask ale during the great blizzard of 2010 ... and finding it.
• Zak Avery at The Brewboy (in Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom) believes that US-style big hoppy IPAs taste better NOT served from cask: "All too often, the big malty backbones and showy hop characters of these beers are lost through lack of carbonation."
• Jay Brooks of the Brookston Beer Bulletin —a co-founder and organizer of The Session— took time from San Francisco Beer Week for his personal confession oh how he lost his “cask-conditioned ale virginity.” He concludes his post with an optimistic assessment of the state of cask ale in the US: "I think it’s safe to say that cask is here to stay and should continue to grow for the foreseeable future."
• Stan Hieronymus of Appellation Beer —a co-founder and organizer of The Session— contributed two posts for this month: Here, Stan writes about The Marble Brewery in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which makes casks dry-hopped with single varietals to determine the aromatic changes to hops, if any, from harvest to harvest. Here,  he shares a recollection from the 1997 Great American Beer Festival, and asks "Have you kissed your cellarman today?"
• Jim at Two Parts Rye —who hails from Columbus, Ohio— writes that "Cask Ales don't fall out of trees, especially in January." He wonders why "all of the cask ales that I have sampled are relatively flat."
• Bill Madden —owner/brewer at soon-to-open Mad Fox Brewing Company brewpub in Falls Church, Virginia— discusses his plans for 6 handpumps serving at least 3 cask ales at any one time.

Several non-bloggers contributed to The Session. I've re-printed their essays.

• Joe Gold is a founding member of the Chesapeake Branch of the Society for the Preservation of Beer from the Wood (SPBW), one of the few branches outside of the UK. In 2009, he and others organized that city's very successful Baltimore Beer Week. He wrote about his favorite cask ale memory at Youngs.
• Casey Hard is the General Manager and cellarman for Maxs Tap House —in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the founder and organizer of the 72 Hours of Belgium, a three day Belgian beer festival in Baltimore. He writes that "Cask ale is a wonderful way to taste beer in its true form."
• Paul Pendyck opened UK Brewing Supplies 13 years ago. He "imports everything you need for the dispense of cask ale, firkins, pins, Angram beer engines, bungs, taps etc." He is the co-organizer of the Lititz Cask Beer Festival. He asks that pub owners be conscientious to "put that perfect pint on the bar. <...> Remember that our goal should be to present the product as it is meant to be: clear, conditioned correctly, and at the right temperature."
• Ken Krucenski was the owner of Sean Bolan's Historic Irish Pub in the Federal Hill district of Baltimore, Maryland. In operation from March of 2006 until October of 2006, Sean Bolan's developed a reputation for good beer much greater than its intimate size, and became renowned for its beer breakfasts. Ken writes about his on-the-job education as a cellarman: It's Alive: "Learn how to 'read' the beer."
• Already a degreed UK brewmaster when he arrived in the United States in 1988, Steve 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. He describes what is 'authentic' about English-style cask ale: "delicate, nuanced, subtle, and drinkable," but not extreme.
• Stephen Marsh is the Cellarmaster for the Clipper City Brewing Company of Baltimore, Maryland. He recounts "How I became a firkin man." He says, "Creating and producing real ale is just a part of the attraction for me. It is also being part of something grand."
• Originally from the UK, 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. In a biographical sketch, he tells us of "The Education of a Cask Ale Brewer."
• Wendell Ose is an award-winning homebrewer, and an avid supporter of local breweries in northern Virginia. he discusses his (successful) attempts at home-brewing real ale, and tells us why he is an advocate for cask-conditioned 'Ordinary Bitter.'
• 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. In "Still crazy about cask ale after all these years" he recounts his time at the US Real Ale Festival, and pleads for the proper handling of cask ale.
• Ron Fischer is the Division Manager of the Cask Ale Collection for B. United International. Reprinted with permission, his "Field Guide to Cellarmanship."
• 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. In his contribution to The Session, Daniels offers a look back at the history of the US Real Ale Festival from 1996 to 2003: the successes, and the difficulties of presenting cask-conditioned ale in a large venue.
• Local Hops for Local Beer: my contribution, about a Maryland farm supplying hops for a Maryland brewery, and a nascent hop industry along the US East Coast.

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ADDENDA:

• How I introduced The Session: Cask-Conditioned Beer
• The post to which The Session participants linked, in the comments section.
  
• The next Session announced: The Session #37 - The Display Shelf: When to Drink the Good Stuff.

Fobbing at the Tut

Doing double-duty, this post is also one in a series on Cask Ale: Fobbing at the Tut.

The Snow Abides

This may be a good fermentables blog, but an occasional non-fermentable, non-comestible post can't hurt.

From the Capital Weather Gang blog at the Washington Post, here are the official numbers from the big snow(s):

This is now the snowiest winter of all-time! The likely final numbers from yesterday's blizzard included 10.8" of snow at National (DCA), 9.3" at Dulles (IAD) and 19.5" at Baltimore-Washington (BWI).

Where do we stand on all-time records?
Washington's new all-time record stands at 55.9" (besting 54.4" from 1898-99) while IAD is now at 72.8" on the year compared to BWI's 79.9".

What about February records?
DCA is 3.3" away from the February (and all-time monthly) record for D.C. set in 1899 of 35.2"; IAD has already eclipsed the 2003 Feb. record by 10.8"; BWI has also eclipsed the 2003 numbers for Feb. by 8.7".

The incredible totals
DCA, 28.6"; IAD, 41.7"; BWI, 44.3".

The Capital Weather Gang 03:15 PM ET, 02/11/2010

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More photos here.

VeggieDag Thursday: Box of Chocolate, Bottle of Beer

I recently overheard a customer in a wine and beer shop proclaim: "I don't want beer with dessert. That's just weird."

I kept quiet in the shop, but here, to rebut, I reprint this 2007 lede, and more, from Maggie Dutton, writing in her Wine Offensive blog in the Seattle Weekly:

Red Wine and Chocolate: arranged marriage. Beer and Chocolate: hot sex.

Here's more:

Red Wine Doesn't Go With Chocolate
Try beer instead.
December 12, 2007

Red wine with chocolate is like an arranged marriage. The only thing they have in common is fruit: Red wine tastes like it, and chocolate sometimes tastes good with it. However, red wine's overbearing tannin, oak, and acid affront a fine chocolate's complex creaminess, and neither lets the other finish a sentence. They don't belong together.

Chocolate needs something like beer, a beverage that can be supportive. They speak the same language. They share the same bittersweet nature. Think of the beer as you would a chocolate's center: chocolate-covered malt balls, toasted rice, toffee. They like to go to the same places on your tongue <...>

<...> With beer and chocolate, it's not a matter of getting it wrong. It's more likely to be just right.

What's at play here is the affinity of flavors between chocolate and beer, what brewmaster Garrett Oliver calls the "flavor hook."  He's not talking about Industrial Light Lagers, but fuller-flavored traditional beers and the newer craft styles.

What combinations to try?

Stout, with its roasty and bakers' chocolate flavors, is a natural choice with chocolate. But don't stop there. Try citrus chocolate with IPAs. Sweet fruit beers with 'white' chocolate.

Weizens and weizenbocks with fruit-liqueur chocolates. Barleywines with toffee/caramel chocolates. Dubbels and other dark abbey and Belgian-style beers with all sorts of chocolate. Even chocolate and peanut butter (!) with an Imperial Stout.

And, yes, if you wished, you could try some port wine with that dark chocolate.

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• More posts on beer and chocolate:  here.
• As a representative for beer/wine wholesaler Select Wines, Inc., I sell the beers of Heavy Seas (Clipper City) in northern Virginia.
  
• VeggieDag is a series of occasional Thursday posts on vegetarian cooking and issues. Why the name? Here.
  
• Suggestions and submissions from chefs and homecooks welcomed! Here.

Local hops for local beer

One late afternoon in mid December 2009, the threat of a snowstorm transformed a 45 minute car trip into a three and one-half hour ordeal, roads thronged with the slow-moving crush of panicking drivers.

There was, however, a payoff waiting for me at my destination, The Judge's Bench —a pub in Ellicott City,  Maryland, south of Baltimore City ...

It was a pint of Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale —the India Pale Ale (IPA) from Clipper City Brewing Company of Baltimore, Maryland— poured fresh from a firkin, a 10.8 gallon cask.

A month or so earlier, Clipper City had purchased organically grown hops from a farm in Frederick, Maryland. Those local hops —Cascade and Centennial varietals— had been used by the brewery's cellarman, Stephen Marsh,  to dry-hop several casks of Loose Cannon.

The beer was there at The Judge's Bench. And also there were the farmers of those hops,  Tom Barse and his wife Carol Ann McConaughy. I got my pint and introduced myself. Quick with disarming smiles, they discussed Stillpoint Farm, and their plans for its future.

l-r: Hugh Sisson (owner, Clipper City Brewing);
Carol Ann McConaughy and Tom Barse.

In the 1870s, Tom told me, Frederick, Maryland, had been an important hop growing region. In fact, there had been a brewery, not far from where his farm is today, for which local farmers had supplied hops. Thus Tom, who grew up in nearby Rockville, Maryland, sees himself not so much as a pioneer, but as a revivalist.

A member of the Maryland Wine Growers' Association, Tom began growing wine grapes over two decades ago. He is experimenting with some grafting of various varietals, but he is not interested in operating a winery. "Heck why? I can grow hops."

He took another sip from his pint of Loose Cannon, made with his hops, and continued.

He believes that hops can thrive again in our area, if smart methods are used. Tom farms using organic and sustainable methods, but he won't be getting the certification. Hops have not been grown commercially in the region for over 100 years. As a result, black rot and powdery mildew haven't had host plants in which to thrive. But, he warns, once a hop industry takes root, it might be only a matter of time before infestation recurs. What happens, he wondered, the first time an organically-certified hop farmer has to deal with these problems?

Although the East Coast (and New York State, in particular) was the nation's primary hop-growing region in the 19th century, the industry was was moribund by the early 1950s. Compared to the hop yards in Oregon and Washington, now the premier growing region, the hop farms of New York and the mid-Atlantic experienced higher humidity (and thus greater susceptibility to infestation) and produced lower yield.

The 'organic' regulations themselves are somewhat suspect, he adds. For instance, copper sulfate is allowed under the rules to fight powdery mildew. The best farming practices include returning what you take from the soil back to the soil.

When he first began making plans to grow hops, he contacted farmer Glen Fuller who himself had recently opened a commercial organic hop yard (5 acres) in Colorado. Following his advice, Tom plants his rhizomes no later then the beginning of May, after the threat of a frost has receded. Each rhizome eventually will yield 4-6 hop shoots. He's noticed that the shoots seem to grow well at night, sometimes as much as 1 foot.

Barse entwines the hops on 18 foot high trellises, using coir: fibrous 'string' derived from coconuts.

He harvests the hops mid-August through the first week of September. Already, just with the two varietals he's grown, Tom has noticed that different hops ripen at different rates. Cacades are ready earlier than Centennial, and hops at the top of a trellis ripen before those below.

Tom has at most a 5 day window in which to pick the hops. If there's a late rain, it can be trouble: hops don't 'ripen' properly when wet. His 'signal' is the slightly yellow appearance of the bracteoles, and the pungent-sweet aroma of the lupulin.

Fresh hops contain up to 70% moisture by weight, and thus are very susceptible to rot. So, after harvest, he air-dries the hops to 7-8% by weight. Because of the region's humid environment, the process can take up to 4 days.  He then vacuum-packs them, and stores them refrigerated.

Tom explained that the hop bine (not vine) is a perennial. Thus, even though he took the plunge in 2008, he won't see full potential yield  until the 2nd or 3rd year.  His first harvest, although small, he described as beautiful. The Cascades and Centennial were bountiful; the Fuggles, Northern Brewer, Saaz, and Nugget, not so much. Stillpoint Farm comprises only 47 acres (and shares space with the horses and sheep Carol raises). Even so, Tom expects 2,400 lbs per acre as he gears up.

Tom hand-picked the hops in 2009, but he's realistic about achieving a profitable volume. He will need to mechanize the process.  He is building build a hop picker, basing his design on that of two pioneering hop farmers in New York state: Larry Fisher of Foothills Hop Farm, and Rick Pedersen of Pederson Farm, both members of the nascent Northeast Hop Alliance.

Although Tom plans to increase hop production in 2010, and will be adding other varietals, he is realistic. He has no interest in competing with the Pacific Northwest hop industry. He can't. In addition to not matching its sheer volume, he would never be able competitively pay for the lab analysis to determine the alpha acid content of hops, that is, their bittering power. His hops would be better used for aroma, for which lab analysis isn't necessary.

Small farms, Tom notes, need to diversify their crops to be successful. For example, corn or soybeans yield maybe $300 per acre. The best vineyards in Maryland (all relatively small) average gross incomes of $5,000 per acre, and that's after a minimum of 5 years of operation.  The economics demand diversification into higher profit crops. The recent increases in hop prices make hops a potentially viable crop.

Tom and Carol (well, that would be Tom, Carol noted) even have plans to open their own brewery, producing 1,500 barrels per year. That would truly be a farmhouse brewery.

But ... how was the beer? How was the cask of locally-hopped Loose Cannon Hop3 IPA?

You have to understand that this was cask-conditioned beer. It was beer that was still fermenting within a 10.8 gallon stainless steel vessel called a firkin.  This was FRESH beer. The point of cask-conditioned beer is NOT to age the beer (even though you could). The point is to serve it NOW, to drink it NOW: fresh, bursting with just-prepared flavor. Storing cask-conditioned beer even for a week, let alone months, seems ridiculous. That's what a keg or bottle is for.

So, how was the beer? Redolent of yeasty flavors, and the piney, citrusy, character of fresh Cascade hops, it was, in a word, exquisite.

l-r: Stephen Marsh; Tom Barse; Kurt Krol, brewer.

I toasted Stephen Marsh, the cellarman at Clipper City Brewing Company who had prepared this cask and indeed prepares all of the brewery's casks (and who had invited me to this event), and, then, I drove back to northern Virginia, arriving home just as the snow storm, that would dump 18 inches on us, began.

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UPDATE

A month after the event, I met with Hugh Sisson —general partner and founder of Clipper City Brewing. I asked him two questions.

YFGF: I imagine that hops from Stillpoint Farms cost more than those from the large hop merchants. Will you continue to buy from Stillpoint?

Sisson: Yes. The majority of our hops will be purchased elsewhere, but, as Clipper City is a Maryland-based business, we support other local businesses. The fresh flavor of their hops is wonderful. In fact, we are willing to pay a premium above and beyond the spot market price [which is significantly higher than pre-determined contracted prices]. But, he added, that's within reason.

YFGF [leading the witness]: Is Clipper City planning anything special for the next harvest?

Sisson: Yes. For the 2010 harvest, we're anticipating wet-hopped ales, and casks.

YFGF: Wet-hop: That's literally using hops within hours of their harvest, even before they've been cured. The flavor is a lot 'grassier' than with cured hops. Think of biting into a stalk of fresh basil, stems and all, rather than cooking with it. Many west coast breweries —much closer to the northwest US hop yards —do this already. By the time we get these beers —as good as they are— they've lost some of that just-harvested character.

I envision a truck leaving Clipper City in Baltimore, being driven the 45 minutes to Frederick, loaded up, and driven back to Baltimore, where the brewers would unload the hops and promptly brew the beer. Fresh!

• More photos from the event.
• The Session: Cask-Conditioned Beer.

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.