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Beer (con)fusion

your favourite tipple - wine, beer, spirits
GrandOiseau
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Beer (con)fusion

#6208

Postby GrandOiseau » November 18th, 2016, 1:38 am

On Tuesday I was in the smoke for one of my occasional meet ups with a couple of my old Poly lags.

Found a boozer that was in CAMRA's GBG that I hadn't recalled visiting before called the Holborn Whippet. I didn't have time to do much research beyond that. When I went in was faced with a wall - literally - with a number of beer taps sticking out. I had a pint of Adnams Mosaic. I couldn't figure out if the beer was cask or not. Or indeed if cask beers were available. There appeared to be no handpumps. The Mosaic with an ABV of 4.1% was £4.40 a pint which was a bit steep. Worst still it tasted like, err keg beer. It wasn't fizzy bland or nasty beer. It was just OK, like a decent non-BCA bottled beer. Anyroad up I thought I'd take advantage of some of the eclectic beers on offer and had a Oechsner Hefeweizen Hell (wheat beer). I love wheat beer. But this was just OK.

Today I looked it up again. CAMRA says: "This pub uses a flow-jet to pump the beer up to the taps." WTF? The beer itself from Adnams: "Made with, you guessed it, Mosaic hops, this pale blonde has bags of personality with bold mango, peach, lemon and pine flavours and a dry hoppy finish. Mosaic Pale Ale was launched at Craft Beer Rising 2014 and is available in cask, keg and 330ml bottles." Perhaps the fact it has won awards for Design and Packaging rather than how it tastes tells you what we need to know.

Interestingly when I look the pubs website I see that I missed out on the cask ales entirely. Worst still the 6 cask ales available where much more reasonably priced from £3.40 to £3.60. The pub itself was spartan but not particularly classy. I don't want to slag it off too much. But it's kind of what I fear of the craft revolution (sic). Pubs that lack comfort or soul, a confusion between cask and keg. A muddying of the waters, with more expensive but trendy keg beers sitting alongside cask ales.

We headed up the road to the Swan where the furnishings and ambience were more traditional. The half a dozen or so handpumps sadly clear and proud centre bar. Purity Mad Goose was a familiar and yet exciting invitation to sup. Dart --> bullseye.

holbornwhippet.com - all about the pub including a "Tap List"

http://adnams.co.uk/beer/our-beers/jack ... -pale-ale/ - the keg beer

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/oechsner-h ... ell/18007/ - wheat beer ratings and reviews

http://www.taylor-walker.co.uk/pub/swan-holborn/c0124/ - a normal pub

GO

redsturgeon
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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#6230

Postby redsturgeon » November 18th, 2016, 7:58 am

I have to agree with this.

It seems to be a modern thing this line of taps sticking out from a wall, along with industrial type benches and long tables.

Give me a proper boozer in which to imbibe.

My local has hand pumps front of the bar and a row of casks at the back so you can see exactly what you are getting.

The fizzy lager keg things are pushed to the side.

They will also always pour a taster of anything you wish to try (perhaps not single malts, I must ask though...)

The prime seats are tucked in the corner next to a window that look through to the brewing room.

Proper pub!

John

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#6493

Postby Rhyd6 » November 18th, 2016, 4:37 pm

We've just got back from the Old Three Pigeons, Craigfechan. Nice traditional pub that allows you to take dogs in. We had a pint each of Doombar which was this weeks guest ale, next week it'll be Black Sheep. They have numerous other cask ales but they're all Welsh, however now that
the landlord has been persuaded that there is a brewing industry outside of Wales he'll continue to broaden his horizons.

R6

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#9805

Postby JMN2 » November 28th, 2016, 8:14 pm

In Euston Tap the cask (and keg) taps are also sticking out from a trendy copper covered wall. This is an American fad.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#9815

Postby AleisterCrowley » November 28th, 2016, 8:44 pm

They're a bit short of space in the Tap as well...

Hallucigenia
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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#12829

Postby Hallucigenia » December 7th, 2016, 12:14 am

I'm not sure of the exact corporate structure, but the Holborn Whippet and the Euston Tap are at least cousins if not sister companies, along with the Pelt Trader under Cannon St station and others.

Personally I don't have a problem with keg taps in the back wall, I prefer it to a row of tall fonts blocking the eyeline between bar staff and customer. If it's the kind of place with lots of keg stuff, then your choice is either the back wall (which simplifies plumbing, particularly in shop conversions, but means the staff turn their back to the punter) or the low fonts you get in eg the Craft Beer Co.

I'd certainly disagree with GO about the "dangers" of "a confusion between cask and keg. A muddying of the waters". Despite the brainwashing of the beards, your head won't explode if you drink keg beer. Some of it is great, some of it is rubbish - just like cask. What matters is drinking good beer, not the manner of its dispense. I've had the opportunity to have the same beer in keg and cask form and sometimes the cask is showing off its condition and is just a little bit better than its keg sister, other times the cask has been tired whilst the keg is still in decent nick. If keg allows the landlord to have on great beer that he would not be able to sell a full cask of within 5 days, then bring it on. It's great news for those of us with niche tastes, whether for dark beers or stronger beers or ... weird beers, particularly outside high-footfall city centres. If that means waters are muddied, then muddy away - my top 5 beers of this year include beers in bottle, cask and keg, and I wouldn't like to be deprived of the opportunity to have any of them.

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#12990

Postby redsturgeon » December 7th, 2016, 3:06 pm

my top 5 beers of this year include beers in bottle, cask and keg, and I wouldn't like to be deprived of the opportunity to have any of them.


I'm intrigued, care to share?

John

GrandOiseau
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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#13164

Postby GrandOiseau » December 7th, 2016, 10:36 pm

Hallucigenia wrote:Despite the brainwashing of the beards, your head won't explode if you drink keg beer. Some of it is great, some of it is rubbish - just like cask. What matters is drinking good beer, not the manner of its dispense. I've had the opportunity to have the same beer in keg and cask form and sometimes the cask is showing off its condition and is just a little bit better than its keg sister, other times the cask has been tired whilst the keg is still in decent nick.

Mmmmm, interesting how you can lose respect for someones opinion so quickly.

Hallucigenia wrote:If keg allows the landlord to have on great beer that he would not be able to sell a full cask of within 5 days, then bring it on.

I'd rather avoid the pub as clearly it doesn't get much custom.

Hallucigenia wrote:It's great news for those of us with niche tastes, whether for dark beers or stronger beers or ... weird beers

I've had plenty of those on cask.

Hallucigenia wrote:my top 5 beers of this year include beers in bottle, cask and keg, and I wouldn't like to be deprived of the opportunity to have any of them.

As it happens I don't want to deprive anybody of anything but equally I'd like them to have the open knowledge of what they are buying.

GO

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#13773

Postby Hallucigenia » December 9th, 2016, 6:14 pm

I'd rather avoid the pub as clearly it doesn't get much custom....I've had plenty of those on cask.


Easy to say in a city, but it's more complex out in the sticks. I know several market-town GBG pubs which have plenty of custom, and which try to offer an interesting range of beers, but which struggle to shift certain styles.

For instance, I've watched punters at the tap of a much-garlanded brewery, which generally has six beers on, they like to show off their range - but I'd guess 2/3 of pints served are the 4% pale session beer. So even if they were shifting a kilderkin (18g) of that every night - hardly a lack of custom - on average they'd be moving a firkin (9g standard cask) of the other beers every 5 days, and while I can imagine they could shift that kind of volume at the weekend they won't be during the week. I assume they have the two other core beers in firkins but maybe do the more specialist stuff in smaller sizes, but it's perhaps notable that they now usually have their most famous, most-awarded, beer in keg. It's over 5%, so it's just not the sort of thing most people want to drink on a school night in areas with less public transport than London. I know other pubs that have taken to offering local stouts in bottle because they want to give people the option but the proportion of punters who buy stouts are just too small to justify it on draught.

I don't want to deprive anybody of anything but equally I'd like them to have the open knowledge of what they are buying.


It sounds like you want to deprive people outside cities of the opportunity to have "minority" beers, even if it means having them in keg rather than cask.

I've not been to the Whippet, but certainly at the Euston Tap it's always been abundantly clear what is cask and what's not, as long as you look at the board and not the method of dispense. But perhaps it's partly a regional thing, the identification of cask with handpulls is perhaps tighter down south, whereas oop north there was always more diversity with cask more likely historically to go through electric pumps (Robbies seemed to be particular fans) although they're almost extinct now, and that's before you get onto the Scottish air pressure system. Even with handpulls, you often get Flojet assistance on long lines.

In any case the boundaries are blurring with the likes of keykeg, which even the beards have OK'd. That is probably the most likely source of confusion these days in that it gives drinkers a cellar-conditioned product but at the point of dispense it looks like it's from ordinary steel kegs. The price usually gives it away though!!!

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#13862

Postby GrandOiseau » December 9th, 2016, 11:46 pm

Pubs of always had the challenge of being able to provide niche or strong beers in cask form. It's nothing new. Labelling it "craft" and sticking it in a keg is the cheats way out. RAIB's are an option but still requires decent throughput and good stock management. Which again is why many opt out.

I am drinking a bottle of dead Purity Mad Goose. It's far better than Carlsberg or GK IPA but it's not a patch on the cask version. And sorry no amount of fudgery will change that. The term "craft" is part of that fudgery and so is the Whippet.

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#14388

Postby didds » December 12th, 2016, 2:35 pm

Rhyd6 wrote:We've just got back from the Old Three Pigeons, Craigfechan. Nice traditional pub that allows you to take dogs in. We had a pint each of Doombar which was this weeks guest ale, next week it'll be Black Sheep. They have numerous other cask ales but they're all Welsh, however now that the landlord has been persuaded that there is a brewing industry outside of Wales he'll continue to broaden his horizons.

R6


WADR to a pub I've never been to, if his idea of a non-Welsh guest Ale is Doombar, you may be better off sticking to the indigenous offerings. Of which Wales has plenty without recourse to Moleson Coors, now the third largest beer company in the world.

didds

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#14401

Postby AleisterCrowley » December 12th, 2016, 2:55 pm

I'd be happy with some of the stuff Purple Moose produce - preferable to Doom Bore!

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#14474

Postby Rhyd6 » December 12th, 2016, 5:28 pm

AC it's a good job we don't all like the same beers then as I don't like Pws Mws (Purple Moose) much. I always seem to get a metallic taste from it. At the moment a lot of pubs around this area are selling beer "specially produced for our pub" ie weasel wotsit with the name of their pub on the pump. I know the lad who makes it and have to say as a marketing gimmick it's working well. I've even heard people discussing the merits of the supposedly different brews in different pubs, shows you can fool some of the people etc.

R6

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Re: Beer (con)fusion

#14547

Postby AleisterCrowley » December 12th, 2016, 9:52 pm

I like their Ysgawen (Elderflower) one - always keep an eye out for it when I'm back home. The Snowdonia jobbie is OK too
People do taste things differently though - to me, most white wine tastes like battery acid: even ones recommended to me by knowledgeable types.
I don't mind some of the German stuff - Riesling etc, and the better (ie not £3.99) end of the NZ Sauv. blanc range


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