TOPIC:

well I guess that CAMRA's campaign must have something to do with it. When all you get is yellow fizz, warmer flatter cask ale is something of an acquired taste. guinness and yellow beer have all the pubs sewn up here in a way that the UK never was even pre CAMRA.

as far as I know the only casks in Dublin are the porterhouse TSB and the casks that the Bull and Castle put on from Carlow brewing co.

but hopefully it's getting more popular!

Hi brewer, welcome to the site (I can't believe no one registered that screen name until now).

Cask is a lot more trouble for the publican. It requires skill to tap a cask and judge when it's ready to be served. It also has a very short shelf life once it's vented, so you can end up with wasted beer.

The average Irish publican wouldn't know a hard spile if you were tapping it into his navel and with keg beer he doesn't even have to clean his own beer lines, as the brewery will send someone round to do it for him. Why would he want to take on something as troublesome as cask? Why would you want that foreign muck anyway? Is Heineken not good enough for ya?

the whole thing with cask beer in this country upsets me...I had a lovely cask IPA in the B&C the night we were robbed by the french. its just a shame its not a more common thing. One great thing about supporting celtic is i get to go to the state bar when i'm over there. typically they'd have 6/7 different beers on cask! Real treat

"brewer":scvdyu7a wrote: Why is there not more good cask beer in Ireland?[/quote:scvdyu7a]

Unfortunately the question is "Why is there not more good beer in Ireland?

Damn right oblivious. I like cask beer but it's never going to be anything other than a minor subset of the craft beer market in Ireland. I want to see the craft beer segment grow and most of that will be kegs and bottles, not casks and there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's good beer.

I agree that "good beer" should be the goal. I have had some rotten cask beer. I also understand the skill involved with serving cask beer. I am not trying to say that cask beer is the way forward. I like the enthusiasm of CAMRA but think that they forget that taste should be the important factor.
My question comes from the view of an outsider. There is quite a lot of good cask beer sold right next to force carbonated beer on the west coast of the US. The key is variety and quality of products. I am shocked to find that for a country that loves its pints as much as Ireland your options are fairly limited. On that front I am happy to find a community that embraces new and unique beers. There is a wonderful world of beer out there and we should do our best to enjoy it! Personally I don't care if its cask or keg or bottle. I just want it to be good and sold at a fair price.