A cask breather allows just a sip of CO2 into the cask to replace the volume of the pint just served, thereby keeping the beer from spoiling. If you cannot finish a whole firkin or pin within two days, the beer will spoil. This acts like a showerhead, aerating the beer as it pours into the glass to create a rich, thick head. Most engines now have what is called a sparkler screwed onto the tip of the gooseneck. Originally these engines dispensed the beer in the same condition as from a spigot. Beer EngineĮssentially this is a pump that sits on the bar and directly draws the beer from the cask through a gooseneck spout into the glass. You can either dispense directly from the spigot via gravity, or use a spigot that is threaded on one end to attach a hose to transfer the beer directly to a beer engine. This is what you drive into the cask via the keystone, typically with a wooden mallet traditionally made of ash, but a cheap rubber mallet works well too. Once the opening has been made, the hard spile is replaced with a soft spile, which is similar but more porous, allowing air to get into the cask. A hard spile is pounded into the tut of the shive to release pressure from the cask and allow it to equalize before serving. SpileĪ spile is a wooden nail that is driven into the shive. Both the shive and the keystone have a thinner-walled centerpiece for knocking the tap through, or in the case of the shive, the spile. There is a two-inch round opening on the side for the shive, or plug, and a one-inch hole on the end at the rim for the keystone where you tap the beer. The cask can be made out of wood or plastic, but typically is stainless steel. These are great for reasons I’ll get into later. There is also the British pin, a smaller brother to the firkin that holds about 5 gallons. Typically the cask is a British firkin, a traditional barrel-shaped container that holds about 11 gallons. Before you begin to make cask ale, however, there are a few tools involved. Cask ale is served directly from the spigot under gravity pumped from a beer engine or poured directly from the bottle in which it was conditioned.Ĭask ale is relatively easy to incorporate into your brewing repertoire. The carbonation occurs naturally from the fermentation process. Getting StartedĬask ale, or real ale, is beer that has gone through a secondary fermentation in the vessel from which it is dispensed. Believe me, cask IPA is a different animal than IPA served from a regular tap. For example, you could have six beers on tap and six cask versions of the same beers, giving you 12 very different beers for your customers to choose from. “Thankfully, we are also seeing an improvement in the standard of the pint crossing the bar, but there are still improvements to be made.”īy adding cask ale to your beer menu, you can increase your beer selection without brewing new beers. and maybe even more so,” said Paul Pendyck, owner of UK Brewing Supplies, a U.S. “Cask ale is growing as rapidly as craft beer in the U.S. have been tinkering with this style of making and serving ales for quite a while now, but the practice is showing signs of real growth the last few years.
#Dynalist brew cask full
He was right, of course, but it’s not a great description to introduce the novice to the full flavor and velvety texture of this traditional style of beer.Ĭraft breweries in the U.S. “Warm and flat is where it’s at.” So said my friend Erik Jefferts back in 1996 when he was head brewer at Phantom Canyon Brewing Co.
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