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Black Oak Cask On At Twisted Kilt

Discuss Ontario's brewpubs, pubs, beer bars and restaurants here.

Moderators: Craig, Cass

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Blankboy
Posts: 357
Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2002 8:00 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Blankboy »

Torontoblue wrote:Why should cask ale be served as a chunky, murky mess?
Cause it looks and tastes better?
"Everything's better with monkeys!"

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Torontoblue
Beer Superstar
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Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:12 pm
Location: Edmonton via Toronto via The Wirral

Post by Torontoblue »

Blankboy wrote:
Torontoblue wrote:Why should cask ale be served as a chunky, murky mess?
Cause it looks and tastes better?
No comment................... :-?

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Blankboy
Posts: 357
Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2002 8:00 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Blankboy »

Is the below still accurate? Anyone been to Twisted Kilt lately?
Asst. Grain Shoveller wrote:Hi Everybody
I'm hopefully going to be doing some regular casks at the Twisted Kilt close to Yonge & Davisville.
I'll be working as the semi official cellar master and keeping the cask lines clean and ready to go.
John of the Twisted Kilt is trying to build up some cask business.
Casks from Muskoka, possibly Cameron's and a few other craft breweries may make appearances.
Its up to you to come out and support this effort.
Ideally the casks will be set up on Wednesday and be perfect Friday & Saturday...but if they don't sell then they won't taste good and a bar that's trying to promote cask beer and my efforts will be wasted.
Please come out and support some good cask beer.

cheers
ken
"Everything's better with monkeys!"

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TwoPint
Posts: 250
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:15 am
Location: at large

Post by TwoPint »

Is the below still accurate? Anyone been to Twisted Kilt lately?
I was there on Sunday, asked about cask and was told that there was none available.

PeenSteen
Bar Fly
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Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by PeenSteen »

I stop in every so often and they have had Black Oak Hop Bomb, Black Oak Summer Saison Marmalade Edition and Great Lakes Canucklehead (well west coast pale ale on the chalkboard, but I'm fairly sure it was the same as the one I had at Brydens) the last few times I was there. They also usually have Black Oak Pale and Nut Brown on tap as well as a Sam Adams seasonal and some Unibroue stuff too.

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Garthicus
Posts: 368
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:32 pm

Post by Garthicus »

Blankboy and I popped in on Saturday, only one cask was functional and it was Crazy Canuck. We asked why they all weren't on and were told "there's not much demand for cask" - shame.
"A pint is too much, but I do not mind pickles" and " even more synthetic (and natural) aroma."

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Belgian
Bar Towel Legend
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Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:15 pm
Location: Earth

Post by Belgian »

Blankboy wrote:
Torontoblue wrote:Why should cask ale be served as a chunky, murky mess?
Cause it looks and tastes better?
Operative word "sometimes tastes better" and I will agree with monkey guy!
In Beerum Veritas

G.M. Gillman
Seasoned Drinker
Posts: 1486
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:24 pm

Post by G.M. Gillman »

I recognize people have different tastes. Those who like beer cloudy with particulate matter suspended are entitled to do so of course.

My view of it, and what I believe is behind the standards cited by Sid, is it tastes much better when fined to clarity (or allowed naturally to settle but that is not always feasible). When the glass is full of yeast, it can overwhelm much of the hop and malt taste the brewer put in there. When it is fined, those tastes are allowed to flourish and yet the yeast still has its say. There is still some yeast in other words in a fined pint. So the three elements, hops, malt, yeast, find their balance better for me when the pint is clear.

Now, American hops can be very forward in smell and taste. So perhaps for some a cloudy APA is not unbalanced: fair enough. But APA is not my preferred style to begin with, so...

It's true too that wheat beer styles often are unfiltered. However, the wheaty edge of a good wheat beer seems to me to cut through a yeasty taste, almost like a C-hop can. Or maybe it's just a local taste just as (I acknowledge it) zwickel beer and other unfiltered lagers are in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. These beers, however, have a very small sale compared to filtered lager.

I believe the advent of cloudy cask ale in North America proceeded from a misunderstanding on the meaning of unfiltered. In real ale practice in England, real ale was always fined, but not mechanically filtered, to ensure a clear pint. When the standard was not observed, the drinkers noticed it and a cloudy pint was always replaced without question in England. Whereas I think in America, many felt unfiltered meant the beer shouldn't be fined or allowed to clear on its own.

On my last trip to London, I noticed a few pints served fairly cloudy, more than I remembered from 20 and 30 years ago. This could be a purely internal change of standards, or it could be incipient American influence.

I believe too that if real ale was reliably served clear and otherwise in good condition, more people would buy it, but that is a separate point I guess.

There seems no question though that real ale with a cloudy and chunky look has caught on in North America to a good degree. That's well and good for those who like it, but I would rather drink a chilled fizzy craft beer. (Sometimes the latter are cloudy too, but not as often in my experience).

Incidentally, when I've stopped by the Twisted Kilt, usually the real ale is not cloudy, sometimes it is but it isn't the norm I think.

Gary
Gary Gillman

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