Wine is my first love, my business, my hobby and my avocation. I’m the man I am today because of a single sip of wine that sent me on a fantastic odyssey of learning, both about grapes, vineyards, winemaking and wine, and about how to write about it, think about it and how to parse the culture and fellowship of wine into my life, and share it with others.
But I also love beer, and I pursue it with as much passion as I do my winemaking. Aside from all-grain brewing and messing about with professional brewers and hanging out in brew clubs, I’m also part of the Tri-Cities Cask Festival Society. We organise beer festivals that are structured around traditional cask-style beers.
What is Cask Beer?
Simply put, cask beer is beer, but it’s beer from another time. Almost all modern beer, whether served in a bottle or on draft, is carefully filtered to remove solids and to make it sparklingly clear, and then carbonated with an addition of CO2 gas to make it fizzy.
Cask beer, by contrast, isn’t filtered: all of the stuff that gives beer body, flavour, aroma and distinct character is left in. In addition to that, cask beer is naturally carbonated–when it goes into the keg it’s primed with a little extra fermentable material and then sealed up. The live yeast in the beer (which we didn’t filter out) eats the fermentable sugars and produces carbon dioxide, which gives the beer a smooth, luscious and creamy mouth-feel, without any of the prickly or ‘scrubby’ character of artificially carbonated beers.
Cask beer is different from standard draft beer, which is kept very cold, and pushed out of the keg under gas pressure, to keep the fizziness high. In a much gentler method, casks are carefully vented and then tapped, and the beer is allowed to flow with great gentleness into the glass–no gas pushing and no numb, ice-cold fizziness, just flavourful, delicious beer nirvana!
This means that cask beer doesn’t last: once you tap a cask it typically goes flat and loses character within a day or so. That means most bars and pubs can only serve it at events or special occasions, and then only one or two casks. That’s why cask festivals are awesome: you get to try 10, 15, 20 or even more cask beers at a time (small samples if you’re trying 20!)
Our latest festival was at the Burrard Public House in Port Moody. We not only had cask beers, but also cask-beer based cocktails, great food and a crowd of over 175 people tasting more than 20 wonderful beers. The best part for me? Tapping kegs.
We had our usual crew of volunteers, who did a fabulous job–they’re all amazing hard workers who put in a lot of effort and time. Without them, we wouldn’t have a festival at all, and I’m constantly impressed with their dedication and hard work.
We also partner with CAMRA Vancouver, who have the Safe Ride Home program that lets cask enthusiasts enjoy the festival, and then take transit home, all for the same ticket price. They’re a great part of every festival.
The TCCFS executive is there as well. It’s a little nail-biting getting everything organised and set up, but once it’s done we’re pretty happy to let it unfold.
But the festival is all about the people who come, and at every single festival I have yet to see someone who isn’t having a great time. The only disappointed people are the ones who couldn’t get tickets!
If this looks like the kind of thing you’d like to try out, you’re in luck: we’re holding another festival on January 22nd, at the Executive Plaza in Coquitlam. It’s a Pro-Am competition, the only one of its kind in Canada, and will feature local brewing clubs making beer under the license of their community craft brewery, and competing againts all the other casks, professional and amateur, for the title of Best Beer!
Check it out and get tickets here: Tri-Cities Pro-Am Cask Festival. They’re $49.00 and come with ten tasters, a souvenir glass, and you even get a burger and a trip through the custom poutine bar!
Hope to see you there.