Cask English Ale in Colorado

[lovetabike]

I did some work in England a number of years ago and loved their cask aged Ales. In Colorado we have a thriving mico brew industry but not anything much in the way of Ales so I thought I would try to brew my own. Sounds like in England the true Ales are making a come back, CAMRA Campaign for Real Ale, seems to be leading the way. If anyone has brewed the cask ages Ales feel free to though some tips. This is also my first home brew attempt also.

Richard

[spiderwrangler]

Take a listen to the recent show on Cask ales if you haven't already. I would suggest however that you hold off on doing cask until you've gotten more familiar and comfortable with the rest of the brewing processes. Cask aging and serving generally will require additional equipment to serve it properly, and starting out by bottling your beer will still let you learn the process. From there you can more readily jump into packaging and serving from casks.

[brewindruid]

That was a great show, setting aside fundage myself to get supplies. My have to wait till the begining of the year. The only thing about this is that those ales are turned so quickly!
It seems like you would really need a firkin(sp) and a fair amount of thirsty friends with a taste for good cask ale!

[spiderwrangler]

Use of the cask breather to put CO2 instead of ambient air into the cask will stretch it out some for you....

[brewindruid]

Have you done a lot of this Spider? Is it best just to save the bucks and take the dive on the whole setup at one time? What about preserving the barrell when not in use?

[lovetabike]

Can someone point me to the show that was about cask ales, can't seem to find it. Good advice, I think I will try something a bit more simple and get my feet wet.

Thanks.

[spiderwrangler]

No, haven't done it, just my opinion based on my current understanding. The Cask Ale show was the 7th of August, 2012... so two weeks ago...

[brewindruid]

I was checking out the site last night. I might have missed it but there wasn't one wood cask. It's all stainless and "Better Cask". I thought the whole point was to have the wood aging as well as the enviromental impact?
I couldn't find a place to get a pin out of anything but American Oak, I know from meadmaking that American oak is way too overpowering.
I can certainly see where the upkeep on a stainless or plastic pin would be far easier, but if you go that route why not just adapt a Korny keg and use wood chips?