Carbonation level of English (Cask) Ale?

[mr_wibble]

So I was in the UK for work a couple of weeks ago, and we managed to visit a few country pubs, and one micro-brewery.

I was eager to try cask ales, in all their forms.

It was great, I enjoyed the different beers, but was disappointed with the level of carbonation - in some cases it was approaching zero. There was a bit of fizz and large-bubble head from the sparkler on the hand-pump, but this quickly dissapated (within seconds).

I must admit I was a bit dissapointed. Some of the beer, speaking withouth exageration, was literally tap-water flat.

The guy that toured us around the microbewery also showed us the aspirators for the cask-ale kegs (like bits of balsa wood), and also said there *should* be a modest level of carbonation ... he used a phrase like "Enough to give a "spritziness" on the palette". I don't rememebr exactly. And that the cask beer should be consumed within 3 days of opening.

Anyway, I bought a few bottles of beer back to taste-test with Mrs Wibble.
These were a world-apart from the on-tap ales: delicious, with indeed a low carbonation, but more than enough to enhance the ale.

So what's going on here?

Do the pub landlords let their beers go flat on purpose?
Is it becasue casks are too old?
It it widely known that bottled ales are better than from the cask?

I just wanna understand.


PS> the pub lunches were absolutely outstanding.

 

[mr_wibble]

Oh, and the cask ales were universally crystal-clear. Very pretty to look at.

 

[Diesel80]

The bottled ones are normally about 50% more carbonated than the cask equiv.
This is not a scientific measure mind. Also if you smash a beer through a sparkler the CO2 will come out of the body of the beer to form the head and will be much flatter than a normal pour / pull / draw.

What ales stood out to you?

Cheers,
D80

 

[S.E]

The Balsa wood thing the guy in the brewery showed you is not an aspirator, it’s a soft spile. A soft spile holds about the same level of carbonation or pressure in a cask as an air lock does in a fermenter and that’s how cask ale is served.

If anyone wants to try cask ale at home just pour straight from your fermenter. Obviously most ales improve with further conditioning in the cask, but let it drop bright in the fermenter under an air lock for 2 or 3 weeks and it will be pretty close.

 

[mr_wibble]

The Balsa wood thing the guy in the brewery showed you is not an aspirator, it’s a soft spile. A soft spile holds about the same level of carbonation or pressure in a cask as an air lock does in a fermenter and that’s how cask ale is served.

Yeah, that sounds like what he said. I must have remembered it incorrectly.

I guess the cask would have a bit more dissolved CO2 when it's first tapped (&spiled) then.

 

[mr_wibble]

What ales stood out to you?

Ah... i didn't make any notes, and I tried about 10 ales (halves) over the week.
We were fairly well jet-lagged too.

The oatmeal stout from Belviour Brewery was very nice though, this was one I brought back bottled.

Generally I preferred the dark ales over the pales, but that goes without saying for me anyway.
My colleague commented that the pale ales tended toward being quite bitter (for his palette). I'm not sure I'd agree though.

 

[S.E]

Yeah, that sounds like what he said. I must have remembered it incorrectly.

I guess the cask would have a bit more dissolved CO2 when it's first tapped (&spiled) then.

When its first tapped it has about the same amount of dissolved co2 as in a sealed fermenter with an air lock.

When the cask arrives at the pub its placed wherever it’s going to be served from, so say behind the bar or in a cellar.

At this point the yeast has been sloshed back into suspension a bit from the journey to the pub so it’s sometimes left undisturbed for a few days, sometimes spiled right away.

The cellarman will use a tool or hard spile made from non porous hard wood or more often plastic these days to wack a hole in the shive which is the bung on the side of the cask. The cask should be laying horizontal with the shive uppermost for this.

As soon as the cellarman punctures the shive the sudden release of pressure will (usually/often) cause the ale to froth out the hole. This will also rouse the yeast again.

Once the froth dies down or there’s no co2 gushing out he will push a spile made from very porous softwood and leave it in place to allow everything to settle down. This soft wood spile acts sort of like an air lock on a fermenter allowing co2 to escape the sealed cask.

Once the pressure has dropped the soft spile is replaced with a hard wood spile and the cask is left until it is needed, usually only day or two but it could be left like this for several days (unlikely but even weeks or possibly months).

When the cask is needed it is tapped. The tap is hammered swiftly through the keystone, (another bung low down). Before whacking the tap through the keystone it’s important to pull out the hard spile first to ensure the cask is not under any pressure, then replace it to cause a vacuum in the cask so little or no (usually little) ale spurts out before the tap is fully inserted and sealed.

Then the hard spile is replaced with another soft spile and the ale is ready to serve by gravity, or pump if it’s in a cellar or other location away from the bar. If the cask is to be consumed quickly like in a busy pub or beer festival the soft spile is often left out to speed up serving.

 

[i-a-n]

The beer drinking culture in England is very different to here, you have to remember that English beers are for quaffing as opposed to out beers here which are mostly for sipping.
Obviously you wouldn't want to down your first schooner of VB or whatever in one or two mouthfuls, the carbonation would be "difficult" to cope with as well as the cold "burning" it's way down the oesophagus and cooling the stomach such that you wouldn't fancy a second. That once happened to me over a very cold pint in Scotland, after a long dry journey I was gagging for the pub and suffered.
Very often a first pint is gone in 2-3 swallows or less making way for the second pint in short order. All this being possible because of the carbonation and temperature.
I usually keep a 25L water carrier from Bunnings with an English Bitter brew in the garage, it's flat beer and great even at mid 20 degrees. Room temperature.
We've all got our own ways, it's what you get used to I guess.

 

[Bribie G]

When I first arrived in Australia in the late 70s .. already a CAMRA member in the old country, for the first couple of years I would surreptitiously swirl my pot / midi of beer under the bar rail or under the table to try and get rid of some of the fizz and warm it up a bit.
When I got back to the UK on holiday in 1982 I wasn't really supposed to be drinking (my SWMBO at the time had put the foot down) but I managed to escape one afternoon at my Grandma's village and headed through the fields on a hot day to the Three Horseshoes where I discovered to my horror that:

1 I'd completely forgotten about the mid-afternoon closing (most pubs then, and maybe still do, would close after lunch and not re-open till about 4 pm) and I only had an hour.

2 They had replaced their John Smith cask ale with John Smith cold fizzy keg version.

So I did an Aussie six o'clock swill impersonation but only managed to choke down three pints of the cold and fizzy. Previously I would have been good for at least five pints of the smooth real ale version.


Needless to say SWMBO became my ex but actually we had a beer together at a wedding last October

 

[Blind Dog]

English cask ale is meant to be 'bright', which refers to its carbonation not clarity, and a 'spritziness on the palette' is about spot on. If its totally flat its dull and lifeless and, with a few exceptions, pretty much undrinkable.

If a sparkler is used, it forces more carbonation out of the body of the beer to form the creamy head. In a decent pub, they won't be using them anyway, as they are an abomination of Beerelzebub.

Anyway, the issue for a lot of pubs in the UK is that some casks are simply slow sellers, so if you get there on the day the cask is tapped, it'll be great, but if its beer sitting around for a week or more, it'll often be getting pretty dull and lifeless. Busy pubs with limited keg beers on tap, will generally have the freshest cask beers.

Nearly 8 years in Australia, and I still generally hate fizzy, near freezing cold beer.

 

[Bribie G]

I'd disagree about the sparklers, in many parts of the Islands such as South Wales and Yorkshire, sparklers give a smooth quaffable ale with a creamy head and force air into the beer. That's the same principle behind nitro served Guinness and one of the reasons that "smooth" keg nitro beers are so popular.

A good pint of hand pulled Tetleys or Brains SA would be nowt without a good run through the sparkler. London beers on the other hand are (or were) served fairly headless.

As posted a few times, when I lived in Cardiff around the time that CAMRA was gaining traction, my local Brains pub got with the Hipsters and started putting a cask of SA on gravity serve behind the counter a couple of times a week.
Totally different drinking experience, no head and a distinct spritz: interesting, but it just wasn't the SA we knew and loved.

 

[Randai]

Not sure on the sparklers and southern/northern divide.

But when I visited the old dart end of last year the beer definitely wasn't "flat", but had really low carbonation.

A few of the highlights.
Had some fullers hand pumped in London, some St Austells Tribute in cornwall (really enjoyed this one), sharps doom bar (didn't stand out that much for me),
some scottish beers I can't remember.
But honestly the real winner for me was this little place we stayed near for a couple of nights, sampled most of their lovely beer.
http://www.lakelandpub.co.uk/
Have to say that maybe I was in the northern part where they have a sparkler going on, because they were smooth and insanely quaffable.

To my uneducated palate, I think we can sort of get away with it at home if you keg and you just give a very low carbonation, which I've found
I prefer these days anyways.

 

[Ciderman]

There is nothing worse than ordering an English bitter on tap in Australia. Invariably it's carbed to the same level as an APA and undrinkable.

 

[Randai]

Ciderman, I can't even say I've seen any English bitters on tap in Australia.

Except recently where Bacchus Brewery in Brisbane had a real ale day, some Harveys beers. The bitter was quite good.

 

[manticle]

Nearly 8 years in Australia, and I still generally hate fizzy, near freezing cold beer.

Mate, I was born here and I think it's an awful idea.
Gassy, half the flavour it should have (******* RIS at 0.5 degrees?) and as it warms in my digestive system, all that burpy CO2 starts to come out.
Cold beer* is ok as an initial thirst quencher on a 40+ deg day but any other time....

*By cold I mean near freezing - good pils between 5 and 7 is still cold but it's a different experience and doesn't freeze your teeth.

 

[Bribie G]

There is nothing worse than ordering an English bitter on tap in Australia. Invariably it's carbed to the same level as an APA and undrinkable.

Some UK themed pubs do (or did) serve brews such as Old Speckled Hen etc but they are not the cask version, they are pasteurised, carbed and kegged for export. Basically the same beer you'd get from Dans in the pint bottles but nowhere near the real version.

 

[Danwood]

As Bribie mentions in the second paragraph of his post above, beers 'darn sarf' are served with much less head than 'oop north'.

I have 2 engines from each area. The traditional northern ones have swan-necks which reach right to the bottom of the glass, and the southern style has a neck roughly half as long, so the beer pours into the side of the glass from half way up.
The northern ones produce a thick, creamy head and the southern spouts knock a fair bit more CO2 out of the beer and the head has much larger, shorter lived, bubbles.

Northern spout on left (stripped down, obviously).
Southern on right.

 

[Randai]

Danwood I did not know that. I thought it was sparkler and beer engine and that was it.

Is that the only two regional differences or does it change in other parts as well?

 

[Danwood]

That's the only two I've ever seen.

 

[i-a-n]

What a great thread this is turning out to be!

Here's a tip, something I discovered by accident while leaving a cold Tooheys Old to warm up a bit, it works for Carlton Black. When a few degrees above serving temperature the flavour comes through, it's good old Brown Ale. (Not Newcastle)

I love to debate with folk about the warm beer thing. How do we define "warm" when tea or coffee served at that temperature would be called cold! No answer has yet been found for that.