Good Article About Cask Aged Beer

If they were to pressurize the beer with Co2 could it still be called cask-conditioned? The hand pump is cool, I like the idea of not having to use any gas canisters. I don't think it would work for me though, it takes me an my roommates 10 days to finish a 5gal keg. If I went straight from a primary fermenter to a Corny keg would that be technically cask-conditioned? I guess I'm a bit confused on the correct definition of cask-conditioned. Is it live yeast in the serving vessel or the lack of pressurized co2 that makes it a 'cask ale'.

Nope. It could still be "on handpump" or "cask-dispensed," but it's techically not cask conditioned.

The primary real ale (a pseudo-synonym for cask-conditioned beer - I say pseudo because it also included bottle conditioned beer) advocacy group in the UK, CAMRA, makes one major error in my opinion by being very much against a handy little device that addresses just the sort of problem you have. There's a device called a "cask breather" that dramatically reduces the oxygen intake into the cask as it's emptied, greatly improving the lifespan of the beer. In my book, there's no foul at all in using such a thing. It should be encouraged, in fact. And then maybe so many pubs in the UK would have more than bitter, bitter, bitter and, oh, hey, look over there! There's a bitter!

The lack of pressure is a consequence of being cask conditioned. It's not what makes it, and you could indeed replicate it by reducing the CO2 levels you add to the keg. And approximating the effect is probably more important for the typical person at home than being true to the defintion.

Speaking of the defintion, conditioning refers to the process of giving a beer its carbonation. Cask conditioning means it must be conditioned directly in the cask, and this has come to mean that it must be naturally conditioned. That is, yeast is not filtered out, and a charge of sugar or unfermented wort is added to the cask or to the beer before it's transferred to the cask so it can naturally carbonate in teh sealed container. This is the same way bottle conditioning works, btw.

-STeve

There are periodic vitriolic arguments about this between individual CAMRA members and at the national policy making conference. FWIW, the arguments as I understand them are as follows:

1. Cask breathers are good because their use has proved to be undetectable in blind tests, no additional pressure is involved, and they allow landlords to stock slow selling beers such as milds and very strong beers.
2. Cask breathers are bad because they encourage bad cellar practice, they are unnecessary if beer is stocked appropriately, and the substitution of CO2 (albeit at atmospheric pressure) for air changes the maturation of the beer in subtle ways.

I'm pro cask breather in principle, but the people who turn up at the CAMRA AGM tend to be pretty fundamentalist about this and their view dominates national policy.

Best regards, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting