TOPIC:

"sbillings":239wkl6r wrote: The sourness issue can be dealt with in two ways.

1. Better cellarmanship and staff training about the condition cask beer should be served in and when it should be removed from sale.

or

2. Using a cask breather to exclude outside air, thus reducing the chances of infection.

As option 1 is hit and miss in the home of cask I don't see it as a viable solution here. I honestly don't know why Irish retailers don't go for option 2. CAMRA make it a problem in the UK but here, the local beer consumer association is less obsessed with the irrelevant minutia of the beer dispense system used than with the quality of the beer once it's in the glass.[/quote:239wkl6r]
This

In spades!!

Had a similar issue actually in W J Kavanaghs.
The difference being that the W J Kavanagh staff knew it was off and didn't serve it.
I asked for a taste of one of their casks, and upon tasting it you could tell it was off, but as the bar man smelled/tasted it also, he immediately said oh wait that's actually gone off, can't serve that.
Definitely could do with more knowledgeable staff in cask serving pubs (like the w j Kavanagh guys) that know how to handle cast and understand when it's beginning to turning.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

Thanks for the replies and info!
I guess we've gone from (almost) no casks to plenty of casks in a very short space of time here, so there'll be a delay in the education process. In fairness, the staff have always given me a free replacement when this has happened.

Assuming they are patient enough to go through the learning phase, very real posibility of them giving up on cask as they could view it as being too fickle

On a positive note, I was in W. J. Kavanagh's last night and had delicious pints of Bronze Beauty, a 3.8% bitter. In perfect condition.

The only experience I have had of a cask beer being definitely "off" as opposed to one I didn't enjoy was in the Porterhouse Central with a TSB. In fairness, I was able to say with confidence that I felt it was off (as I know what it [i:3crvgwt2]should[/i:3crvgwt2] taste like). The barman said that it was a new cask and but gave me a pint of something else instead. I was happy to see a couple of the bar staff tasting the brew and one of them came over to me later and agreed that it was off. Interesting that it was a new cask.

A definite problem is that many punters (sometimes including me) don't know what to expect when trying a cask pint of something and might think "this must ne how it is supposed to taste - not having this again!"