In Defense of the Keg
Much debate has been raging lately over the provenance of carbon dioxide. It seems that some CAMRA brain washing tactics have worked and a significant number of members believe that only beer which comes from a natural secondary fermentation produces good beer. Those of you have read this far will probably realise that this is pure horse shit and good beer can be served from a cask with a blanketing aspirator/breather or from a pressurised keg.The case in point I will be making is Meantime Pale Ale (4.7% abv). On Saturday evening after our mission to North Greenwich, the wife and I had planned to have a Belgian dinner at The Dovetail and then pop into a 30th birthday party being held in a nearby pub. Due to elephantitis like swelling in my wife's ankle we ended up staying closer to home and I piggy backed the missus round the corner to The Havelock. The Havelock is a nice little gastropub owned by Lawrence Dallaglio that also happens to serve good beer (it is a pub after all). The pub has 4 cask ales on, and has 8 keg beers including Meantime Pale Ale. From my seated position at the bar, I noticed an alarming trend. For each pint of real ale that was dispensed, 4 pints of the kegged Meantime product was sold. Actually the Meantime beer was far outselling anything else in the pub. I ordered a pint and found it to be similar in carbonation to cask ale, but tasted incredibly fresh with brilliant hop aroma. So is this beer shit just because it's not naturally carbonated? The customers voting with their wallets certainly didn't think so. After my pint of Pale Ale, I opted for a pint of Sam Brooke's Wandle which is a cask conditioned best bitter. This beer was incredibly bland after the Meantime beer and when I commented about this to the barman he agreed and replied that it was a freshly plumbed cask as well.
The point I am trying to make is that just because a beer is not cask conditioned does not make it rubbish. Sure a lot of the mass produced mega lager is not the most flavourful of products, but then a lot of cask conditioned beer is pretty ordinary too (btw, I'll name a few poor cask conditioned ales if asked). I think we as consumers should be open minded and not be so troubled by the provenance of carbon dioxide which CAMRA seems so fixated on. Great keg beers do exist and examples from Meantime and Lovibond's Brewery are clearly paving the way for a new generation of keg products. So taking a leap out of Wychwood's marketing - What are you so afraid of beardy wierdy man?
Labels: Ale, CAMEL, CAMRA, Dovetail, Sam Brooks, The Havelock
posted by Tim at
Friday, March 06, 2009
20 Comments:
I'm a fan of all the Meantime beers i've tried thus far (mostly in bottles).
That good beer is better than bad beer, regardless of the serving method, is fair enough, however it's a shame Meantime don't give us the choice of trying the cask-conditioned version.
I've always found that the places that serve decent keg beer like Meantime PA also usually sell decent cask beer, whereas the places that can't keep / don't shift enough cask never do!
Hi Rich: I guess it comes down to customer demographic. If your clientel are only interested in buying Stella or Carling then that is all you would stock. There is no point in buying cask ale or decent keg if it's going to either go off or just sit there.
Usually if a pub attacts customers who are interested in good beer then they generally don't care if it comes from a cask or a keg unless they are a CAMRA member.
If a keg beer is neither filtered or pasteurised then I don't really see how it is really any different tase wise than cask anyhow.
This is why I don't understand going down the keg-only route. It might make sense in some markets, but in the UK I don't see it.
Given the choice between equally good keg and (& well kept) cask beers I would most likely go for the cask option. Some of this probably comes down to perception (rightly or wrongly). Food and drink producers like using words such as "experience" and "authenticity": cask beer offers just that.
Show me a beer that's better kegged than cask and I will happily change my mind!
Rich, from my experience, Galway Hooker is better as-normally-intended from the keg rather than the cask version they've done for special occasions like the GBBF. Clotworthy Dobbin -- sold almost exclusively on the UK market -- is another which is gorgeous as a filtered, pasteurised, force-carbonated bottle, but is so-so on cask.
In general, however, I've found that the same beer is much better on cask than keg -- black beers in particular. But that's really not the point: you're not being offered Meantime Pale Ale on cask, and if you've decided it might be better casked then it's about time you jumped into the brewing industry and showed Meantime you know more about how it works than they do.
Wishing that brewers made their beer differently is as pointless as shouting directions to your team from the stands.
"Show me a beer that's better kegged than cask and I will happily change my mind!" That's the type of response I expect from a CAMRA dullard. How about Fuller's ESB? I can't stand it in cask form. It's a cloying, caramel bomb from hell. Anyone who's interested in proper keg should travel to the West Coast. Most of our beers our in keg form, and they are amazing. I drink cask ale and I drink keg ale. Beer is either good, or it's not. There is little if any scientific evidence that supports the claim that beer that's gone through a secondary fermentation in the vessel that it's served in is better than keg beer. The big thing being the addition of extraneous co2. You clowns are living 200 years in the past.
I think the issue of choice spans too ways. One direction is to offer the choice of cask or keg. Fuller's is going down this road now, but I think that is to expand their business due to distribution limitations of cask packaging. i think BrewDog are ina similar position.
The other road is distribution choice. If Meantime were cask only, then people in Scotland, Ireland, The USA or Australia would not have the choice of being able to have a pint of Meantime Pale Ale. Ideally a brewery would have both cask and keg but this then requires more investment in infrastructure and packaging equiptment. There is also the possibility that someone might get a bad pint and cause damage to the brand via word of mouth.
While cask certainly has it's place, it also has it's associated costs and downfalls.
This from the Meantime site regarding their pale ale:
"English Goldings and American Cascade and Cluster hops provide the bitterness, whilst our unique dry hopping technique with bucketfuls of Cascade and Willamette hop gives it a truly tantalising aroma."
I can clearly see why the Doctor liked this. I just started a new campaign. CAMPK, aka Campaign For Proper Keg. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, CAMRA freaks.
TBN: I've been meaning to try Galway Hooker for a while, but am yet to come across it in any form!
Wurst: I have been to the West Coast on several occasions and sampled the beers, some of which were very good. As I stated, good beer is good beer and Meantime's products generally fall into that category. I also have no interest in joining CAMRA and their questionable "campaigns".
Their list of outlets is here. No idea what "London (coming soon)" means, mind.
Rich, sorry for that little rant.
Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!Rant!
Join CAMEL today!
I call it CAMPK, or CAM-PEE-KAY, or Campaign For Proper Keg. I think I'll go fill my Co2 tank today!!
TBN: Thanks, I will have another go at tracking it down when I get back to London.
Wurst: No worries. You obviously feel strongly about this. Seeing as I know how much Tim likes to wind people up, I thought I should try and provide an alternative view. When visiting pubs my general preference is for beer served in the local style. For British ales this means cask-conditioned. Personally I think this leads to a better experience (if the staff know what they are doing). Note that I used the word "preference". It isn't an obsession.
I would be interested to know if Meantime's keg strategy is basically on technical issues or marketing.
Rich, I guarentee it's for technical/distribution/cost reasons. There are also IP and microbiological reasons surrounding proprietry yeast strains.
And yes, I do like to shake a stick in a hornets nest from time to time - why not? My opinion is as valid as anyone elses.
I love cask ale as well. It's a great product when looked after. It's an English institution. I'll serving it this Saturday.
The Meantime keg beers are excellent. But they are also very good from the cask (I had the IPA from cask last weekend which was superb).
It's all about the beer IMO. I have rarely had a dark beer from the keg which has wowed me, but I've had many great dark cask beers. Yet pale beers seem to transfer over to keg better.
I don't honestly mind if my beer is keg or cask, what I want is good beer served at its best. Saying this, I will always gravitate straight to the hand pumps before I even think about looking at the kegged stuff.
I'm loving the campaign though and it's got me looking for more and more keg beers!! I may soon be a member of CAMPK!
CampK
Make sure you use the correct coupler fittings!
I have to agree with Tim on this that good beer is good beer. I think that keg is good in some places as it allows slow moving beers to stay fresher. Surely if a pub doesn't want cask and there is a keg of a good beer on offer that is better than the pub just offering the bland mega-lagers.
A nice read this. As I always say - the method of delivery matters not a jot to me. Yes, cask is very important and traditional in the UK. But it would be foolish to rule out other beers better suited to keg.
Tim - if for some reason you ever end up in Glasgow, can I recommend a visit to West, where they brew some very good German-style keg beers. Their superb St. Mungo lager can also be sampled at the Three Judges, along with a cracking selection of cask and Bacchus frambozen.
God I could murder a pint right now.
Wandle Ale is bland even when fresh...
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