On Beer

[Kerr the Walker]

Here in the States, you can sometimes find brew-pubs that have "cask" beers/ales. Cask brews are kept at cellar temp and hand pulled, ie: no CO2 bottle to pressurize it. In my humble opinion, cask beers/ales taste much better than "regular" draught brews as they're usually brewed on site and in smaller batches.No sacrifice of quality for sake of quantity.

If you can find cask beer/ale, you're in for a treat.

[DWFII]

Here in the States, you can sometimes find brew-pubs that have "cask" beers/ales. [snip] If you can find cask beer/ale, you're in for a treat.

I don't know about other parts of the country but here in the "Highlands" of Central Oregon...not a very heavily populated or built-up area...we now have 5 (?) brewpubs withing a 50 mile radius, including the exemplary Deschutes Brewery, makers of Black Butte Porter.

Life is good.

[English Bloke]

Excellent post by DWFII by the way...

Cellar temp is about right for ales and stouts sold in Pubs in Britain and Ireland. No heating in the cellar so the beer is noticably a few degrees cooler than the room you'd be drinking it in. It is not as cold as north american beer though, hense the "warm beer" cliche but it's still quite cool all the same (in temp that is...)

The demand for Chilled everything in UK is more popular now, presumably offered to lure the lager drinkers back to bitters and stouts. As a result, a lot of keg beer Guiness included offer a chilled option and the beer is passed through chillers as it's drawn by electric pump. Cask beers you can't do that to, so if you want the true British/Irish beer experience go for cask ales.

If you get smooth flow or draught cans (the ones with a widget in) to drink at home, by all means put them in the fridge before opening, we do. It'll stop them exploding all over your kitchen when you pop the ring and after you tip it into a pint glass just leave it for a few minutes to take the cold edge off... If you can bring yourself to wait that long.

Boddingtons is now available world wide and is a moderate to mediocre but affordable example of a British Bitter Beer (it used to be a great beer when it was a small independant). The draught cans are not like the real pint in a real pub but they're not far off. Give it a whirl, try it cold and cool (not warm) and see which you prefer. Guiness of course needs no further mention.

I of course, don't drink anymore... I don't drink any less either but there you go.

[kierran]

Ahh, nothing I like more than a good beer discussion. Firstly, Kerr the Walker is a beer drinker cut from the same mold as me, there is nothing better than "Real Ale" from a real cask. On temperature, the correct drinking temperature really depends on the type of beer. Lagers, Pilsners, and the rest of the wheaty and fruity beers should be seved colder (around 40-45 F), ales should be served warmer (50-55 F). For fully flaveored beers like Stouts and Porters the taste changes with different temperatures as certain flavors come through better at various temperatures. Without the benefit of a climate controlled cellar a good rule of thumb is to put your lagers in the regular fridge, and your ales in the basement or a separate fridge turned to its warmest setting.

Cheers

Kierran

(Relax, have a homebrew)

[bowser]

Traditional beers such as Bitter/Mild/Stout/Old (most people have never heard of old, but it is a traditional beer, ie a pint of "mother in law" half old and half bitter) is what most people refer to as real ale should be served at cellar temp, so called because most pubs kept the beer underground and the temp does not vary from summer to winter (thats how heat pump systems work) as a rough guide the 40-50 f is about right.

Larger beers which includes most of the contential pills are serverd colder.


We have our cellar above ground and on the back of the building, so the bitters are pulled through on a pump and go through a chiller (read big box full of tubes in water, which has been frozen into a block of ice), bitter goes in and comes out, larger goes in and out and then back into another tube and gets chilled twice, for extra cold beers which we dont sell, it will have three trips through the chiller.

Keg beer is not pumped in the same way it is drawn off a tap by gravity or it is pulled up on a beer engine (thats the big leaver pulls you see on proper bar) these are not chilled but in warm weather or in a warm building you use either a water filled blanket called a jacket, or prongs which is a loops of tubing that goes in the vent hole at the top of the barrel, this is fed off a smaller chiller it does not really chill the beer but just drops it a couple of degrees.

The reason is that at cold temps all beer tasts similar, real ales need to be a bit warmer (not hot nor even warm, just warmer than larger beers) in order for the aroma and taste to develop.


Now for anyone REALLY interested in beer then the holly of hollies is this place T brugs beertje, it is a bar in Brugges in Belgium (a country with more beers per head of population than any other in the world), it has been described as the best bar in Europe and probably the best bar in the world, hidden in a side street it is well worth the effort to go and find it, opens at 1600hrs and has a menu not a price list, with beer listed by type Trappist, Dark, Blond, Dubble Tripple, Lambic, fruit etc at last count 400 different all served in a different glass, and ranging from %4 to %16 by volume. Beer drinkers heaven !!!!


http://http://www.brugsbeertje.be/

[O'Callaghan]

The basic distinction has already been covered, i.e. ales (top-fermented) are served cool and lagers (bottom-fermented) are served chilled. The American jibes at 'warm beer' are just that, mild insults that started out as knowingly untrue just to get an annoyed reaction, such as by GIs during WW2, and were repeated by those who didn't know any better.

Getting beer straight from the 'old country' is no guarantee of getting the genuine article. Often you get an 'export' version, which is made with extra hops so you can still taste something when it's been chilled. Probably the best way to avoid it is to buy something from one of the smaller breweries who can't afford to make an export beer especially for people to chill. To be fair, there are plenty of places in the USA that get so hot that there is no chance of having a cool cellar in summer, but most beers will survive in the fridge without unduly spoiling the taste.

[English Bloke]

... this place T brugs beertje, it is a bar in Brugges in Belgium (a country with more beers per head of population than any other in the world)... Beer drinkers heaven !!!!

Bowser Hi.
Fixed your link http://www.brugsbeertje.be/index_en.htm

Great website. I've put it on my Pubs to do list

I bob across to Ieper (Ypres), Belgium fairly often and there are some good Pubs and great beer there too. Belgian Beer isn't all Jupiler and Stella. We should get together sometime and sort out a Belgian sesh! (Mix Kilts into the equation and we're laughin')

[thanmuwa]

Fascinating thread, just a couple of things to add. For our friends across the Atlantic, what you refer to as "warm beers" are the equivalent of the hand-crafted beers you get from the current crop of microbreweries over there. They are called "Real Ales" over here. It is mostly an English phenomenon (although you do see it to some extent in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, probably decreasing in that order). There is even a campaign but I think you need to have a huge beard to join .

The only beer I know of that is intentionally served at room temperature rather than cellar temperature is rare to find these days. If you find a real "old man's pub" in Dublin you can still find served what is called a "soft pint" (ie served at room temperature) of Guinness. You will only find it in certain traditional pubs, none very far away from the Guinness brewery and the Guinness has to be perfect for it to taste good (but when the conditions are right, it is sublime!). Guinness has never travelled well and even in my home town of Athlone, less than 100 miles from Dublin, the Guinness has been disturbed enough by it's journey that a soft pint is not served...

Unfortunately most people these days want to drink hard and fast, and flavour just seems to get in the way, hence the popularity of the flavourless chill-filtered Buds, Fosters ,Tennants etc. And whiskey that goes with coke. Ah well . Still, I now have a pub in Belgium on my to-do list .

[Casey_in_Carolina]

Well, this has certainly been a most fascinating, and educational thread. I'm quite glad to see that the old myth of warm beer is, in fact, just a myth. I've always enjoyed noticing the difference in flavors as a pint warms a bit, and the taste changes slightly.

Now I apparently have another vice to look into, namely these 'cask' ales that are mentioned, and the gravity pulled versus carbonation pumped pints. I'll have to start asking around and see if there's anyone local who does such a thing so I can give it a try.

Thanks for all of the great information.

Take care all,


Casey

[Nervous Jock]

Fascinating thread, just a couple of things to add. For our friends across the Atlantic, what you refer to as "warm beers" are the equivalent of the hand-crafted beers you get from the current crop of microbreweries over there. They are called "Real Ales" over here. It is mostly an English phenomenon (although you do see it to some extent in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, probably decreasing in that order). There is even a campaign but I think you need to have a huge beard to join .

Spoken like a true west coaster