Cask Watch

The containers we use to get our beer to the pub, and from which the beer is sold are called 'casks'. They're made of stainless steel and cost a significant amount. We need a surprisingly large number of them, typically around 7 to 8 times the number of casks we sell in a week; we need a week's stock for filling, two week's stock for maturing, two week's worth in the pub and a week to get them back. Add in a week or two for flexibility and there you go, hundreds of casks, many thousands of pounds of capital.

Being stainless steel they have a variable scrap value depending on the demand so we must be vigilant keeping tabs on them. Notice the colour banding? Each brewery in the country retains their own 'population' and has them colour coded for ease of recognition. They're all individually numbered - pressed into the steel permanently. The owners name is similarly embossed round the rim, or chime. And they're bar coded and scanned where ever they go.

We still bloody lose some though so if you come across a BBQ with 3 yellow bands, do give us a shout - it's worth a beer or two!

India

I told you all about the Pale India Ales last year when we released 'No Tomorrow', well I was wrong and Tomorrow has arrived. This year's offering is "India", an 8.3% pale ale brewed with all East Kent Goldings from the 2008 crop at Brooke Farm. First run out was a cask at the Dover Winter Beer Festival back in February and it was pretty good. Next is the Planet Thanet Easter Beer Festival and the Chambers Beer Festival, both on the weekend of the 10th April.

In the meantime there is a store of bottled India and it's ready and on-sale. For a paltry £2.50 you get 330ml of smack-in-the-face Kentish hops - there's no fuss and bother about this one, it's bitter, bitter, hoppy and bitter. And it kicks like a mole, to paraphrase Count Arthur.

It does drink extremely well.

Satyameva Jayate.

The bi-monthly series drags on.

Dragon's Blood
Extra Special Bitter

I can't remember what I wrote last year about this brew but I'm not about to reread it - onwards and upwards and don't look down and all that.

Anyway, Extra Special Bitter (ESB) is just what it says on the er, cask. Much more malt, many more hops and far more attention to maturation than go into a regular bitter. That's the 'extra special' bit.

The resulting brew is a heady one, rich of colour and flavour and stout of bitter, spicy, hoppiness.

And although it is a St George's Day bevvie, it's availability stretches all the way from March 1st through to the end of April.

Treat yourself and raise a glass to England and decent beer.

Geraldine was a brewster

- the first I'd ever met, I think. And although we'd known each other for a few years it wasn't until late one night in the kitchen, over a glass or two of Orval (or some such) that I began to get the tiniest insight into her genius - not for her the stainless, real scientific solidity of fermentation vessels; more like tall old friends rallying forth in a mutual quest to create ale; casks weren't simply 9 gallons of contained, sterile space in which to store fresh beer, they were alive and chuckling away, needing and loving her deft attention. Every department of her small brewery was alive with spirit and character and her role within this arena was one of a caring conductor, atune to the tune and very much maternal in approach. A unique brewhouse perspective and I never forgot it.

Anyway, Geraldine's path continued, as it ought, and now encompasses motherhood, marriage and musical composition. This piece is called 'Gadds of Ramsgate'.



Gerldine has a web site with a rather funky background. Sadly, it makes no reference to her first career.