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CASK Challenge at C'Est What

Post details, reviews and recaps of interesting beer events in Ontario and elsewhere here.

Moderators: Craig, Cass

jaymack
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CASK Challenge at C'Est What

Post by jaymack »

Are tix available at the door or is this a pre-event sale only?

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Post by Beer Wench »

I asked George at C'est What about this... if tickets are not already sold out, you will be able to buy them at the door. Priority will be given to ticket holders over the 'at the door' purchasers.

I've purchased my ticket already.

Hope to see you there.
Cheers,
Beer Wench
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sstackho
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Post by sstackho »

I'll be there tomorrow.

FWIW, when C'est What had the stout/porter tasting a little while back, I didn't buy in advance. A friend was getting off work early, so I arrived 30-60 minutes before the event started and got the last two tickets available.

Not sure how the popularity of tomorrow's event will compare.

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Torontoblue
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Post by Torontoblue »

Any reports on this? Would have loved to have gone but not drinking would have made it pretty difficult to endure ;-)

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sstackho
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Post by sstackho »

I was there, but recognized no other BTers other than Cass who was "in a meeting" (i.e. drinking) on the other side.

(Oops, scratch that. Maz - The Beer Wench - was there too.)

It was a good little event. Well attended, in that it filled up the old side near the door. MCing by Nick Pashley - author of Notes From A Beermat, which I happen to be in the middle of reading. Speakers were Charles (?) MacLean (of MacLean's - duh), Ken from Black Oak and the brewmaster of Durham whose name escapes me.

There were five pairs of cask/keg beer on offer, though it took a while for the samples to be distributed, so you had to pace yourself in order to be able to do a side-by-side comparison.

FWIW, my recollections on the beers:

Granite Best Bitter - virtually indistinguishable between the two, other than temperature.

MacLean's Pale Ale - cask was much better than the keg. The two tasted quite different.

Black Oak Pale Ale - this was a tough one to judge. The two tasted different, but each with their own plusses and minuses. The keg seemed to have a bit of fruitiness that I liked right after the CO2 "bite", and was missing in the cask. I think I rated the keg one point (out of 50) higher than the cask.

Wellington County - pretty similar between the two serving styles. I believe I gave a slight edge to the keg version.

C'est What Coffee Porter - very nice, as always. Slightly higher marks to the cask version from me.

(I should note, my two friends generally had the opposite opinions of me, in terms of cask/keg preference.)


So I learned that the serving style isn't always going to make a huge impact in all cases. I learned that it's the "Hop Bomb" version of the Black Oak that I love and crave, not necessarily just the cask version.

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Torontoblue
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Post by Torontoblue »

Were the casks drawn direct using C'est What's beer engines or were they poured using gravity?

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sstackho
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Post by sstackho »

I would have to guess their beer engine. Because afterwards, I couldn't order a Hop Head (cask) because they had to make room for the event beers.

What tends to be the difference between cask engine and gravity pours?

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Torontoblue
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Post by Torontoblue »

At C'est What they use a nitro blanket, instead of a CO2 like some places do, in their casks and this, for me, greatly affects the taste and pour of the beer; the nitro leaves a real harsh flavour and coating in the mouth but it pours with a frothy head, which some people prefer. With gravity, well it's just that, no help with the pour, it just comes out and can look quite flat with very little head, which some people assume is flat beer.

The blanket is one of the reasons I don't drink cask at C'est What; it just doesn't taste right to me. Which is a shame as the selection is always spot on.

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sstackho
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Post by sstackho »

Hmmm, interesting. Only the Coffee Porter was remotely nitro-ish, but I can't recall if that was just the keg version. Hardly any of the beers served had any head, but then it had had quite a bit of time to settle before reaching me, I reckon.

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Post by georgemilbrandt »

Gas is used in two very different ways in draught beer.

In conventional, modern, draught systems gas is used to pressurize the keg and force the beer out of the tap. Three gases are commonly used: compressed air, carbon dioxide, and a nitrogen-carbon dioxide blend.

While inexpensive, air is the worst choice for beer pressurization as it is comprised of about 21% oxygen. Oxygen will oxidize the beer in short order, leading to a change in the flavour profile. The carbon dioxide that is in solution in the beer will gradually be lost to the head space in the keg as the beer is dispensed, further changing the flavor of the beer as it loses its fizz.

One cost-effective method of preventing the beer from oxidizing or going flat is to use carbon dioxide to dispense. The problem with carbon dioxide is that the longer a keg is hooked up to pure carbon dioxide, the more CO2 goes into solution in the beer leading to a fizzier product and changing the essential character of the beer.

A more expensive but more effective method is using a blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Nitrogen is an inert gas that makes up 78% of our atmosphere and will not chemically interact with the beer. The theory here is that you mimic the composition of atmosphere by putting 75 to 80% nitrogen in the mix and replace the oxygen normally found in the air with carbon dioxide. In practice two blends are used: a 75/25 or 80/20 blend for "nitrogen dispensed" beer (like that famous Irish stout) and a blend with 50 to 60% nitrogen for more conventional brews.

So, how does all of this relate to cask beer? Well, cask beers are dispensed either by gravity - basically opening up a spigot on the cask and letting the beer pour out or a hand-pump - a piston that is operated by hand to extract the beer from the cask. In either case every drop of beer that comes out needs to be replaced by air, otherwise you will create a vacuum in the cask and the beer won't flow. Of course letting air into the cask means that the beer comes into contact with oxygen, a bad thing. The alternative here is to use the same sort of gas that you would use in a conventional keg system to fill the head space in the cask, but only at atmospheric pressure so that it doesn't push the beer out of the cask. A protective "blanket" of gas on top of the beer. One of the charms of cask ale is its lower carbonation level, which is why you want to avoid using CO2 as your blanket, it would end up in the beer creating fizz where you don't want it.

At C'est What we use three different gas mixtures 55/45 and 75/25 nitrogen/carbon dioxide for our keg beers and pure nitrogen for our cask blanket or breather. We believe these are the least intrusive combinations and let the beer shine like the day it was kegged or casked, days later.
George, C'est What

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Post by Bobsy »

Torontoblue wrote:At C'est What they use a nitro blanket, instead of a CO2 like some places do, in their casks and this, for me, greatly affects the taste and pour of the beer; the nitro leaves a real harsh flavour and coating in the mouth but it pours with a frothy head, which some people prefer. With gravity, well it's just that, no help with the pour, it just comes out and can look quite flat with very little head, which some people assume is flat beer.

The blanket is one of the reasons I don't drink cask at C'est What; it just doesn't taste right to me. Which is a shame as the selection is always spot on.
Hmm...I've never noticed it to be a problem, although I do find the nitro kills the aroma a little. I took my dad (look up CAMRA in the encyclopedia and you'll find his photo) around a whole bunch of cask places in fall, and he liked C'est What the most, so it may be quite subjective. One man's poison, etc?

One of the things I like about C'est is that I've never had a bad cask there, which is a pretty staggering feat considering even the best places sometimes have troubles due to the short life span and volatility of the cask. I wonder if this is in part due to the use of the protective blanket that George mentioned?

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Torontoblue
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Post by Torontoblue »

Bobsy wrote:One of the things I like about C'est is that I've never had a bad cask there, which is a pretty staggering feat considering even the best places sometimes have troubles due to the short life span and volatility of the cask. I wonder if this is in part due to the use of the protective blanket that George mentioned?
I've never had an off pint either, which shows the blanket is doing it's job. It's just that I can 'taste' it sometimes and others it's not visible. First time I had Double Fuggle (back in August) it was marvellous and fresh. Went in last weekend and it was harsh and had that nitro feel to it; the feel and flavour reminded me of drinking canned Caffrey's many years back. I didn't get that at all the previous occasion.

Oh, and a big thanks to George for explaining the system he employs. Good useful information.

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Post by lagerale »

Torontoblue wrote:Oh, and a big thanks to George for explaining the system he employs. Good useful information.
That was a nice explanation. Thanks for the post!!!!

midlife crisis
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Post by midlife crisis »

I was there too and they were pouring the cask versions from their beer engines (i.e. using the cask breather). They also employ a swan neck and sparkler system at C'est What, another "no no" (at least for southern-English style bitters) according to the CAMRA true believers.

I agree with Toronto Blue. While there is never an off pint at C'est What (and I've had many elsewhere), I do find that their cask beer never quite sings like it does at, say, Volo. The flavour seems to always be knocked out a bit. It affects some beers more than others to be sure. Beers like Black Oak Hop Bomb seem to stand up to it well. But as noted above, the "regular" cask Black Oak Pale was very muted on Tuesday and virtually indistinguishable from the keg. I actually rated the keg version higher, which is heresy for a member of CASK, I know ...

One big reason I love cask beer is that it does tend to vary slightly from cask to cask and from day to day once the cask is tapped. The cask will often be at its optimum not immediately, but on day two or three. This is, as George so ably explained, due to the interaction of oxygen with the beer in the cask. These subtle changes do not occur when the cask breather system is employed, as the gas keeps the beer consistent throughout the life of the cask.

Overall, I was surprised that the cask and keg versions of all the beers at the Tuesday event were much more alike than I would have expected. Not just in taste but also in temperature, mouthfeel, aroma. Like Toronto Blue, I suspect this would not have been the case if there had been gravity pours. It would be an interesting experiment in any event.

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Post by old faithful »

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend this event. However, and regardless whether a cask breather is used for the real ale, I am not surprised there is not a large difference in the taste of each pair of beers. Yes, some tasters have reported differences and I have noted these, but overall my sense is the differences weren't dramatic.

I think the reason is that each of the "keg" beers was not pasteurised. Yes, they were filtered to a greater or lesser degree, but residual yeast flavour will remain. This will make them resemble their less filtered, less carbonated cask counterpart. A pasteurised beer is thoroughly filtered and of course heat is applied to kill any residual yeast action. The heat action fundamentally changes the taste of the beer, IMO.

The classic counterpoint in the days when cask beer was threatened by keg beer (U.K. in the 1960's-70's) was between real ale (a truly live beer) and one in which, in the classic words of Michael Jackson, all "life and character" was killed "stone dead" by pasteurisation. Michael was thinking of chilled fizzy pasteurised beers like Watney's Red Barrel or Trophy from Whitbread.

The distinction between cask beer and filtered unpasteurised beer is a valid one and cask beer is still, generally - when properly prepared and served - the superior beer but the differences are less marked than in the other case.

From a historical standpoint, it may be noted that filtered unpasteurised beer was regarded as high quality and more stable than real ale which was likely quickly to sour. In England, probably due to scale and other considerations, it was felt (1960's) the industry should go from cask beer straight to pasteurised keg. The alternative of a filtered but unpasteurised draft was not offered consumers.

CAMRA, Jackson and others combatted the keg beer onslaught, with success. The success was limited since real ale represents today well under 20% of all beers served in the U.K., but their efforts ensured its survival. From my historical readings, however, in Scotland, draft beer early on (from the mid-1800's at least) was sold to licensees filtered but unpasteurised, it was tank beer, basically. Real ale was not well-understood in Scotland until recently, in fact.

It is hard to say why this happened in Scotland and not (again, in the pre-pasteurisation era) in England. Perhaps climate, or the yeasts used, had something to do with it. This model - beer reasonably filtered but not heat-pasteurised - became the model for the North American micro industry. It had a counterpart in that domestic mass-produced draft wasn't pasteurised in North America until recent decades, and still may not be in some instances.

That said, cask beer offers nuances and subtleties not evident, usually, in the filtered product. However, in some cases, as this experiment seems to have shown, in some cases there won't be a great deal of difference between a beer served in the two ways. Also, depending on the style of the beer, some will taste better served filtered than on cask, IMO.

Gary

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