The Bar Towel

MatttthewGeorge wrote:
Least fav was a bitter from QC that I've totally forgotten everything about, besides the taste unfortunately.

Was it Dunham's ESB with Poplar shoots? Actually spat out this into the bucket.

DeMarco wrote:

MatttthewGeorge wrote:
Least fav was a bitter from QC that I've totally forgotten everything about, besides the taste unfortunately.

Was it Dunham's ESB with Poplar shoots? Actually spat out this into the bucket.

A friend of mine tried this and just the smell was enough to turn me off. Not a great showing by Dunham - I also tried their saison du pinnacle (w/ fireweed flowers) and found it to be excessively and unpleasantly bitter.

nickw wrote:

PeenSteen wrote: I get wanting to save some beer for other sessions but not advertising 10oz pours would be the way to go in my opinion.

This makes a lot of sense.

they opted not to offer 10oz pours for beers over 7% ABV per the Servings section on the cask days homepage. Everything else had the option of 10oz pours. If they're trying to curb the drunkard behavior that seems pretty reasonable.

I honestly think this was my favourite Cask Days so far for a bunch of reasons. We hit Sessions 1,3, and 5.
- Friday afternoon was awesome. Relaxed vibe, mostly beer geeks in attendance.
- Bathrooms. I only had one instance where I went "Holy crap look at that bathroom line!" and even then it only took a few minutes. Much improved and much appreciated.
- Saturday day was packed which made it irritating to make your way through the crowd (also you kids get off my lawn), but even then the lines for beer and bathrooms were never too bad, which is great. Not sure how to improve that. Maybe move all the heaters to one corner away from the beer?
- Food was great. Wife and I shared a Porchetta sandwich at each session, and had fried chicken at two of them
- Overall the beers and ciders I tried were very good. Ciders were similarly very good. Obviously not everything was amazing, and some brewers still don't know how/which beers to put in a cask, but overall pretty solid.

Good times. Cheers to everyone who worked to make it happen.

JerCraigs wrote:Obviously not everything was amazing, and some brewers still don't know how/which beers to put in a cask, but overall pretty solid.

so let's talk about this. what should and shouldn't go into casks?
I'd normally say "IPAs", but i've had a killer APA/IPA before from Half Pints. it had perfect cask carbonation. and there was a cask IPA challenge, which kind of seems a bit silly.
stouts and any UK-style beer should be in casks, right?
barley wines, right?
then how about sours? traditional faro and lambic was served uncarbonated, methinks.

ChrisK wrote:

nickw wrote:

PeenSteen wrote: I get wanting to save some beer for other sessions but not advertising 10oz pours would be the way to go in my opinion.

This makes a lot of sense.

they opted not to offer 10oz pours for beers over 7% ABV per the Servings section on the cask days homepage. Everything else had the option of 10oz pours. If they're trying to curb the drunkard behavior that seems pretty reasonable.

OK, but the House Ales Porter House was listed at 5.8% so unless I'm missing something here it just seemed like an arbitrary decision not to give out 10oz pours by the server.

atomeyes wrote:

JerCraigs wrote:Obviously not everything was amazing, and some brewers still don't know how/which beers to put in a cask, but overall pretty solid.

so let's talk about this. what should and shouldn't go into casks?
I'd normally say "IPAs", but i've had a killer APA/IPA before from Half Pints. it had perfect cask carbonation. and there was a cask IPA challenge, which kind of seems a bit silly.
stouts and any UK-style beer should be in casks, right?
barley wines, right?
then how about sours? traditional faro and lambic was served uncarbonated, methinks.

Fair point. I guess the "how" was more my point than the "which". Though I do think several of the styles you mention benefit from at least some carbonation and are better served on tap. Also, the difference between "unfiltered" and "completely full of sludge" in some cases. Regardless, despite my nitpicking I think the overall beer quality at the fest was very good.

JerCraigs wrote:

atomeyes wrote:

JerCraigs wrote:Obviously not everything was amazing, and some brewers still don't know how/which beers to put in a cask, but overall pretty solid.

so let's talk about this. what should and shouldn't go into casks?
I'd normally say "IPAs", but i've had a killer APA/IPA before from Half Pints. it had perfect cask carbonation. and there was a cask IPA challenge, which kind of seems a bit silly.
stouts and any UK-style beer should be in casks, right?
barley wines, right?
then how about sours? traditional faro and lambic was served uncarbonated, methinks.

Fair point. I guess the "how" was more my point than the "which". Though I do think several of the styles you mention benefit from at least some carbonation and are better served on tap. Also, the difference between "unfiltered" and "completely full of sludge" in some cases. Regardless, despite my nitpicking I think the overall beer quality at the fest was very good.

The mason jar glass didn't help head retention one bit, so it was difficult to visually evaluate carbonation levels. I went on Saturday night and almost every beer I had was pretty flat. Cask beer isn't supposed to be like that, but it seems like most brewers think their cask beer should be still. Pub managers evaluate casks by checking how the meniscus and head reacts when disturbed/swirled. I didn't have a head on one beer I tried. There is no reason why cask beer has to be this way. The Fullers ESB cask from Barvolo I sampled had a fat juicy head that lasted throughout my pint.

The beers were all fairly oxidized by Saturday night. They could have topped the cask with nitrogen or CO2 between sessions. I had that slight menthol note you get from rapid oxidation (think storing an open beer in your fridge overnight).

AugustusRex wrote:
The mason jar glass didn't help head retention one bit, so it was difficult to visually evaluate carbonation levels. I went on Saturday night and almost every beer I had was pretty flat. Cask beer isn't supposed to be like that, but it seems like most brewers think their cask beer should be still. Pub managers evaluate casks by checking how the meniscus and head reacts when disturbed/swirled. I didn't have a head on one beer I tried. There is no reason why cask beer has to be this way. The Fullers ESB cask from Barvolo I sampled had a fat juicy head that lasted throughout my pint.

The beers were all fairly oxidized by Saturday night. They could have topped the cask with nitrogen or CO2 between sessions. I had that slight menthol note you get from rapid oxidation (think storing an open beer in your fridge overnight).

i was pretty excited when my beer poured with a bit of head.

unless they're really fucking things up when tapping the beer and yanking those spiles out, they shouldn't oxidize after 1 day. nothing i had on saturday was oxidized that i can recall.

but this all comes down to Ontario still being in its infancy in, well, most things beer. yeah, this has been a decade of cask days. but brewers still don't get the nuances of what to put in a cask, how to put it, HOW FAR IN ADVANCE THEY SHOULD BREW, RACK AND CARBONATE (big letters because this is what kills us every year).

when i was in belgium and there was a festival, they'd go to their barrel room (droolz) 2 weeks before the festival, rack to keg, force carbonate and BANG! you had whales and loons on tap. in ontario? other than 3minMid and El Jaguar, were there any "whales"? just a bunch of one-offs. which is totally cool. but it shows you how we're still playing catch-up to the rest of the world.

Ontario breweries need to go take a peek at what's done at other beer festivals and be inspired by them. instead, we're in this weird growth phase where breweries are trying to keep up to capacity and grow capacity, which means that we're not always getting their "A" game or what should be their "A" game.

what we really need? a june beer festival. on the Island. no casks. just kegs of great shit. you want to pour your Steam Whistle? get out of here. you want Boneshaker? no thanks. we want you to try.

PeenSteen wrote:

OK, but the House Ales Porter House was listed at 5.8% so unless I'm missing something here it just seemed like an arbitrary decision not to give out 10oz pours by the server.

All casks with a red dot on its sign were 5oz only. This included all the imports/high ABV. Not sure why House Ales was included, my guess would be to make sure that House Ales was represented at all 5 sessions.

admviolin wrote:

PeenSteen wrote:

OK, but the House Ales Porter House was listed at 5.8% so unless I'm missing something here it just seemed like an arbitrary decision not to give out 10oz pours by the server.

All casks with a red dot on its sign were 5oz only. This included all the imports/high ABV. Not sure why House Ales was included, my guess would be to make sure that House Ales was represented at all 5 sessions.

Seems my guess was wrong about the ABV clause (they didn't list the ABV in the beer list, but "Robust Porter" doesn't rule out high ABV) but this also makes sense from a brand representation standpoint.

Was there Friday afternoon, was an absolutely blast. Felt like we had the run of the place, weather was great. Food was solid. Had a great beat, could dance to it.

I went on Friday afternoon, it was awesome. Decided to go back Friday night and got way too drunk. Was so hungover the next day I decided to not attend Saturday night even though I had a ticket bought and tokens left over. Guess I better use them next year.

DDC Immoralite was probably the highlight for me. Also loved the 3 Minutes to Midnight and Barn Owl 3, and Amsterdam El Jaguar.