Wanted: Stainless Steel Pin/Cask

Where have all the casks gone? I've been trying to buy a 4.5 gallon cask for home-use and found it impossible to locate any. The usual suspects, Keg Services and Alumasc Grundy, have gone have gone out of business and ABUK, Morrow Bros can't get hold of ANY casks for love nor money. What gives here? Are we expecting a sudden influx of new brewery set-ups or is there some other reason for this sudden dearth of casks? The only people I can find supplying casks at present are Maisonneuve, a French company, that only deal in minimum orders of 20

- rather more than I desire. I find it rather gauling(!) that English beer is distributed in French casks and then invariably dispensed into French glasses. What gives!! If anyone can has a spare pin lying around or can suggest any other casks suppliers please let me know!

Cheers, John Mul.

Reply to
John Mulholland
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I was told exactly the same story earlier this year by a small brewery in Yorkshire, that they couldn't source any new casks in England, only from France.

Robin

Reply to
Robin Cox

The other place that exports casks to GB is - believe it or not - China. I had an enquiry from a Chinese firm wishing to exhibit their casks at Great British Beer Festival this year, I think they believed it (a) to be a trade show and (b) to be quite simple for a non-EU firm to exhibit there. In fact, about 18 months lead time should be required for permits to trade, visas, etc to come through and so I don't think I'll hear from them for another year or so.

Reply to
Pandora

About 18 months ago I had a similar reponse - I phoned around all of the cask manufacturers/reconditioners in UK & the only one who could do anything was MaisonNeuve (sp?) - IIRC reconditioners such as KegServices said they were snowed under & having difficulty finding the 2nd hand casks to refurb.

MaisonNeuve were pretty cheap, but (if any brewers are thinking of buying from them) I wouldn't go for their cheapest model (unless they've sorted the problem out) as the keystone is almost recessed under the lip of the top of the cask (a real PITA if you want to hammer a keystone in without bashing the lip of the cask!)

re Pins - I'm sadly fairly sure you'd have even more trouble finding pins than firkins! I know Brakspear had a load of them - don't know who got them when the stuff Refresh didn't want was auctioned off tho.

Depending on why you want them, one possibility is to use the German

5litre (semi-reusable!) steel cans - a few brewers are using them (Charlie Wells, Zerodegs & Bath Ales IIRC) for my own use I have caustic-cleaned & re-used them with no noticeable problems. cheers MikeMcG mic (underscore) mac (at) postmaster (dot) co (dot) uk ObligatoryBeeryBusiness - good beer (Phoenix White (summat - Monk? & Landlord) & excellent free jukebox at Beehive Bradford; v decent Sunday folk music sesh (" hammered dulcimers, dble bass, etc) Taylor's Golden Best & Weizenland Weisse (Bamberg) & 100+ foreign beerlist! at Alma (Cottonstones, nr Triangle, Sowerby Bridge)
Reply to
MikeMcG

since last posting I found some info to suggest that the following may have casks for sale -

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(the folks who bought all the Firkin brewplants) & Morrow Bros Ltd. (Preston?) Tel: 01772 311882, Fax: 01772 627863 (I think they used to sell new/refurbed casks, plus bought a new cask washer in recent years!)

the Brewers' Guardian site also has info on a no of brewery auctions (following on from the closure of Mansfield, Coors/Bass Cape Hill, EldridgePope/ThomasHardy

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this link may be useful too

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cheers Mike McG

Reply to
MikeMcG

Thanks Mike, I'll have another look around.

John Mul.

Reply to
John Mulholland

You could always try approaching St Austell to try and buy one of their wooden ones.

Reply to
Sean & Bronwyn Kelleher

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