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?

Brugse Zot

After a rather satisfying pint from The Jeruselum we headed across Clerkenwell Road and nipped into The Dovetail Belgian Cafe where after giving the bar guy a lesson in how to subtract £5.60 from £20 to give us £14.40 change (seriously this guy couldn't count) we settled with two half pints of Brugse Zot ale from De Halve Maan Brewery. Now I profess that I really like this beer. I have been to the brewery in downtown Brugge a couple of times and after listening to annoying USA types asking really stupid and inappropriate questions savoured the deliciousness that is the unfiltered product. The filtered product I had at the dovetaillast night, while not as nice as the fresh unfiltered brew from the brewery was still pretty good. The abv comes in at a smashing 6.1% abv and the taste is bitter with hints of spice (I think its corriander?) and the taste of burnt candy sugar which rather stangely goes well in this beer. The bar itself is not that much to rave about except that it has an extensive beer menu, but the offerings on tap were limited to the Artois family along with Leffe, Hoegaarden and the Zot. One thing that I will be going back to The Dovetail for though is the food. Whilst i didn't eat, everyone else seemed to have a plate food and it looked good with generous portions and garlic mayo for the fries, I mean frittes! Overall: Expensive but worth ticking the box!