Oakwell brewery - Weaver Hotel, Runcorn

So what? If they can't cope with people who know what they like they shouldn't pretend.

BTW: I casually remark "do you have a microwave" and when the answer is yes INSIST on it being warmed up. If they can't cope with that then ask for your money back. It does irritate but what the hell are they doing flogging frozen s*1t.

An oily finish is _I think_ due to the hops themselves not the use of hop oils. I know what you mean, as we used to have it on one brewery in Essex, in fact it was very much a characteristic (unwelcome to my taste buds).

I get something similar with my homebrews, then I noticed the exact same thing when I tried a lighter (only 6.5% ESB rather than 8.2% IPA) beer from the company (Yards, Philadelphia). They do BC beers, which aren't overly unusual here, but I need some yeast from somewhere to brew ordinary bitter (~3.8%) I can have a few of. So I might point a finger towards the yeast used, from description. Only had Barnsley bitter once I think and can't remember where/when, and really it could have been Acorn's anyway...

In message , snipped-for-privacy@googlemail.com writes

I haven't seen a cold haze in years - Brakspears used to do it in winter if you left it around outdoors in really cold weather. So much beer is sold frozen now, that I expect brewers make sure their beer won't go hazy when cold.

I'm not sure that the R&D budget at Oakwell will have got as far as that issue...

(hmm, funny you should say that, because I thought that Oakwell were brewing & kegging lager, & if so, they should have the kit to do to "chill-proof" any of their beers, including cask - see below)

However, I've not heard of any real ale brewery doing anything to their cask beer to account for possible chill haze in the pub

AFAIK it would involve costly equipment & processes, beyond most micros & many regionals - chilling the beer *very* cold for several days before fine filtration, then you'd still have to add yeast back for cask-conditioning.

It all seems like hard work, especially when you think that very cold serving temps will also dumb down the lovely complex flavours of the beer! cheers MikeMcG.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the cold filtration. You are abbsolutely right about the futility of such a process, but this brings me back to my original point about the beer being too cold. Perhaps they don't heat the cellar, because their clientele prefer cold beer or for economic reasons, or both. But it's a shame because I've had a couple of odd pints and a full session in there before when the beer was enjoyable for its uncompromising character. Uncompromising character may be a hindrance when you are in a run-down area trying to compete with keg pubs and you've just had a few K invested in a revamp...

Or it could be that the beer pipes are next to uninsulated flash cooling pipes for the extra cold lager and Guinness? that was certainly the case in one pub I went into. When I pointed out the effect this was having on their cask ale they moved the cask ale pipes.

Nice idea, but I must point out that Oakwell, like Sam Smiths, don't sell anyone else's beers in their pubs!

Any further suggestions anyone, before I go back for another sample?

IME, very few places heat their cellar - much more likely to be the opposite, plus flash-cooling of the beer in line, & cooled water pumped around the lines in a 'python' etc.

but they may have cold/extra cold lines from their own keg beers bundled in with the cask ale lines?

If it's still hazy & the beer tastes OK, but the haze disappears on warming up a bit, it's probably chill-haze; if it's harshly bitter, it's probably unsettled yeast; & if it tastes weird, it's probably infected! cheers MikeMcG

If you don't heat the cellar in the winter, how can you expect to keep beers up to 10 degrees C? My own cellar is too cold in the winter, so I pop my Maredsous in the microwave for a few seconds if I haven't had time to let it stand in a warm room...

Oakwell = low-tech, cheap and definitely no frills! Under £1.50 a pint... they do their own lager like Sam Smiths, but I don't recall any fancy pumps.

As I said in the original post, Oakwell bitter is bitter bitter anyway, but on this occasion I had a bitter oily film in my mouth after sampling the ale. I've noted this occasionally in other beers [notably Lees, which I am partial to] but not every time I sampled them. Is this film, I asked, from something in the ale, something lingering in my mouth from my lunch, or a combination of the two?

I guess some conscientious cask beer pubs might warm their cellars, but I don't ever remember seeing any that do. (anyone here know of any?).

Like most fans of decent ale, I'd rather have my beer cool, not cold, maybe slightly warmer for stronger brews.

if they're selling their own keg lager in their own pubs they can't be too low tech & no frills?!

Plus they needn't necessarily be fancy pumps for the beer to be served extra-cooled(*) (i.e. it needn't be the ones dripping with condensation - what a waste of energy!) - they just need to have very cold water/coolant pumped around the beer lines & for the beer to go through a cooler before getting to the bar.

(*) - & the cask beer lines next to them therefore becoming too cold

as to the source of the bitter oily film - I'm not sure - possibly a switch to (more harshly bitter, resinous) higher alpha-acid hop varieties?Or, as you say, maybe something you ate?! Though not having tasted the beer, I'm obviously guessing.

I know it's sacrilege to ask here, but anyway - has anyone tasted their lagers? cheers MikeMcG.

I might be able to set up a session in there soon. I'll make it my business to investigate all the issues, including sampling the lager which I wouldn't have dreamed of before your suggestion!

well, it's such a rarity (micro-brewed UK lager) that its got to be worth a taste for novelty value at very least! cheers MikeMcG

How about, if you like micro lager, Old Spot "Not 4 Girls", a 5.7% cask lager, currently available at Birstall Cricket Club, WF17 9QF?

Cheers,

Paul

do you know is it traditionally lager-brewed - lager yeast, cold- conditioned, etc? any good? cheers MikeMcG

I was a publican for 15 years, most of it in the good beer guide. If I had not heated my cellar in the winter I doubt whether we would ever have had a secondary fermentation. Cellar cooling equipment heats if needed as standard and the thermostats switch between heating and cooling as needed.

Stuart

An overground cellar by any chance? It's one of those things that puzzle me, why do pub owners put the beer storage above ground and cause temperature regulation problems?

It remains to be seen if the typical Youngs pub will ever get cellar temperature control. They aren't alone of course and it remains as a good reason for staying away from most London pubs in the summer. Is Yorkshire far enough? :-)

In message , Steven Pampling writes

Are you thinking of the ones on the river, where any cellar would automatically get flooded? Unreliable beer's traditional in riverside pubs for that very reason.

Actually no.

The riverside pubs (or near to) I've been to are usually the better ones.They probably benefit from high turnover.

The ones with variable beer are all over but as an example I don't think Hampstead Hill counts as river level somehow. Visiting there has one big (colourful) advantage in that you can see the yellowy-orange muck you were breathing earlier.