Kegs Without Extraneous CO2

We quite like KeyKegs. We wish they cost a little less, or at least that we could find a more cost effective way of getting them transported from Germany. But still, the bag-in-a-ball type of thing is handy and the non-returnable nature cuts costs in other areas.

We can put the beer into KeyKeg with minimal filtering, after carbonating by secondary fermentation in our tanks. It's difficult to find a reason, from this brewers point of view, why the beer in KeyKegs is any different from that in cask. The only disadvantage I can see is that it is difficult to vent off a KeyKeg if the beer is more fizzy than desired¹.

In just about 2 weeks from today we'll be pitching up at Leeds to serve beer from KeyKeg. I hope, if I get it all sorted, I may, just for the novelty, seve some of it through handpull.

Meanwhile, here is Jules and I messing around with various human powered compressed air generators.


KeyKeg dispense using foot-pump from Hardknott Brewery on Vimeo.


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¹However, it is not impossible to reduce carbonation levels by venting. I'm planning a tutorial video on dealing with Craft Keg when it gets too carbonated.

Fizzy is FUN!!!! :)

One of the reasons I like cask beer is because it's not generally too carbonated. I actually don't care too much for over-carbonated beer, or any drink that is too fizzy for that matter. Some soft drinks can be very refreshing on a hot day, but the gassy bloated feeling created when you feel like sinking a pint of cola can be particularly unpleasant.

When I was a kid it was a real treat to have fizzy pop. Often, being in a large family, squash would be the option provided. If we were really lucky Mum would put an ice tray in the freezer compartment, but lemonade or coke was reserved for parties and was a little bit of a treat.

The vast majority of draught beer served in this country is fizzy keg. I don't care for it much, although on a very hot day a pint of good lager is very refreshingly cold and the tongue scrubbing effect of the carbonation can be just the ticket.

I try to produce my keg, which I have to point out is currently very much in development, with a low level of carbonation and with minimal, if any filtering. I've been told by some craft beer people that it's not fizzy enough. Perhaps the new generation of craft keg lovers are looking for fizzy beer with flavour, because fizzy is fun.

It's an interesting conundrum; people expect keg to be colder and more carbonated. Indeed, some beer drinkers like kegged lager because it is cold and fizzy. Cask beer is flabby in comparison and is not cold enough. Some people like fizzy beer, and it is possible that at least a proportion of drinkers will engage with keg, especially the younger population. There is significant evidence to show that this is exactly what BrewDog are doing.

Of course, a potential problem of craft keg, even if it leaves the brewery at optimum carbonation levels, is ensuring it does not pick-up carbonation in the cellar of the pub. It's a fair concern and I'll be the first to admit that as more bars, like Port Street, Euston Tap, Sheffield Tap and many others start dispensing keg from small producers, we have to work with them to ensure gas settings and mixtures are correct for the product.

Oh, and guys, make sure your cellar is at 12 degrees and turn the gas off when the bar is closed.

In defence of the Crafterati

I generally agree with the comments made recently by Pete Brown and a related subject by Zak Avery regarding divisions in the beer world. This is all followed up by Tandleman who very nicely points out that we should all be able to comment where we like whilst still calling for a united front for British beer. Within these pieces there are links to other very salient observations by other bloggers. I do get all of this; there is a danger of us being far too negative rather than maintaining general positiveness about beer. There is indeed much to celebrate about beer in the UK, it's very diverse with a fantastic mix of progressive and traditional.

However, this also leads me to wonder. In the cities there are some great places to get great beer. There are specialist beer bars springing up all over the place and they all seem to be doing very well indeed. For this "craft beer revolution" to work it does need a cosmopolitan environment. Here in Cumbria there might well be some things to celebrate, but for the growing number of beer Crafterati within the county, it can be frustratingly difficult to improve enthusiasm for craft beer, whatever your definition of craft might be.

I can see the folly of criticising what people choose to drink, but equally there are areas of the country where the beer world view is still very narrow. I cannot get to most of the pubs that serve the beers I enjoy without driving, or getting Ann to drive. Most of my beer sales are a significant distance from where I have chosen to set up my brewery.

Imagine you can't get any beer that you really enjoy. Imagine you live in a county where everything is terribly parochial. Imagine you very rarely get anything other than boring brown beer, or even perhaps pale beer, but barely with much hop character to write about. Imagine that you are the sort of person who realises that drinking 6 pints of session ale does nothing for you other than damaging liver cells and putting a little more unwanted fat around your waist.

Imagine you are a brewer who is operating from that county and finds that most of your market is, in fact, outside the county because people inside don't really like the beers you make, despite them being awarded beer of the festival at least three times.

We know that there are people who like my beer. We also know that there are people who don't. Sometimes, when we follow up a sale to a pub, in the hope of repeat custom, the reply is an honest "my customers didn't really like it". Of course, I worry that it might have been a fault with that particular cask, and sometimes that might be so, in which case we try our best to address that situation. However, it is clear that certain outlets find that our approach to beer does not match the very stale traditional outlook which prevails.

When I send my beer to more progressive beer outlets I worry that it isn't progressive enough. I worry that I need to pack more flavour into the beer and ensure I can impress the Crafterati.

I know fine well that a massive 8% hop bomb is never going to be mainstream, and nor should it be. I know that imperial wood aged stouts are specialist beers of which most drinkers will be rightly sceptical.

I must hereby state my absolute right to slag off attitudes and choices of beer that prevent me from enjoying my own beer world, either from a brewer's or a drinker's perspective. By proxy of course this has to extend to supporting the right of people to deride chemical fizzy beer, even though I have now come to realise the error of that course of action.

It is interesting that Pete Brown's muse was triggered by Cookie's point that the wine world never slags off poor wine. Excuse me, after only the briefest of looks I found quite a few wine blogs where there are similar topics to be found. OK, wine buffs might be a bit more subtle about how they deride lower quality, or the use of such things as sulphites, for instance. We could discuss the fact that wine writers appear to be more erudite if you like, that would be more appropriate, but of course that would sit very uncomfortably with most beer enthusiasts.

Wine critic, art critic, music critic? Just the same as the beer critic surely? We can't all just write about that last great beer we tried in that new beer bar can we? If all beer writing is just about awesome beer we like we'll get criticised for not talking about the issues.

I can't help feeling that we are going around in ever decreasing circles.

What is Lager?

I did it, my fizzed up ale works.

Today I was asked for a pint of lager, not that Lindeboom pilsner, but it had to be lager. I gave the gentleman a taster of my fizzed up ale. It's actually a light mild, at least that's what the local CAMRA tasting panel said, so that's what it must be. It's called Saazy Lamm and is 4.3% ABV. I think it's bland and actually tastes better chilled and fizzed than it does cask conditioned. It is made with lager malt and Saaz hops but then fermented with Nottingham ale yeast. It was cleared in a cask and then decanted into a keg.

The customer decided that it was just the type of lager he wanted and proceeded to order a whole pint. I also gave him a taster of the Lindeboom just for good measure. No, that was no good at all apparently. He only likes lager, not pilsner.

So, there you go.

Something special

I haven't said much about the economic situation. I'm hoping the exchange rate is going to stop people going abroad, hopefully the summer, for the pubs that are still open, will be quite good. After all, everyone likes a drink with good company and even better on a hot lazy sunny day.

I don't say too much about Wetherspoons either. I do not like the places and will not ever pretend to. I do admire Tim Martin, however. Anybody who can make people part with money for such a low quality product is a wizard. That does mean I should admire McDollop and Bugger King as well. Perhaps, in a way, I do.

As a result of the Credit Crunch^TM our usual man who acquires our continental fizzy stuff has cash flow problems. He's owed a large amount of money by some corporate prats. He owes a lesser amount to James Clay, the company who imports the beers. James Clay is reluctantly putting his account on stop. In normal times the bank would extend my suppliers overdraft and everything would be OK. But despite the government giving money to the banks to stop this happening, they are tightening up on all businesses. Nobody is happy about this, not me, not my man and not James Clay. Perhaps the banks are happy, because they now have taxpayers money and seem to be able to keep hold of it.

Today we had to go to James Clay ourselves, browse through a large warehouse full of beer and choose what we wanted. I was like a kid in a candy store. We came back with rather more than we went for, I just hope we can sell it all. It was worth going though. We got given a much larger than usual quantity of point of sale freebies, you know, branded glasses, bar runners, chalk boards etc.

On the way back we called at a very good pub, chosen by Ann from the good beer guide. We needed lunch so a call at the Fox and Goose was in order. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a good ale pub. I also guessed, fairly quickly that food was not a driver behind this pubs success. 4 hand pulls all with something interesting. Nice beers, nice chap running it and worthy of a visit. But no food for us.

So we ended up stopping at a motorway service station for a crap baguette pizza thing and a coffee. Left on the table was a copy of the Daily Mirror. We wouldn't buy it normally, but it was worth every penny we paid for it. Reading through Ann found an article on Wetherspoons. There he goes again, I thought, the master of PR, Tim Martin. And it just goes to show the target audience he has, Mirror readers.

Eventually, I reluctantly read the article. Through the rather smug comments about how he's still going to do OK, because he's selling crap beer for 99p a pint, he is also pointing out that people want something different in a pub. This is how he is winning. Yes, OK, he's playing dirty by selling volume at knock down prices where other pubs can't, but there is something else there. There is something that has got the run of the mill pubs, well, running. Like no other chain pub they also provide variety. I think there is lots the rest of the pub trade could learn from Tim Martin. He does say "customers are willing to spend a bit extra for something special". It doesn't take that much to be special compared to Wetherspoons.

So now I'm sitting drinking something special, and it's all Tandleman's fault. His blog alerted me to the NWBF, where I tried Budvar Dark. Now I've gone and bought a keg of the stuff. I think it's quite nice and when trade is slow I can still have a dark beer on without the problems of a cask not selling. And I can hold my head high because I'm selling something special.