Comments on: Draught, Keg and Cask

By: Erlangernick

Erlangernick — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:00:10 +0000

Interesting. Alt and Kölsch are still ales though. :p

By: Rod

Rod — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:18:58 +0000

Agree with everything that Barm says here.
Also, The large brewers had been throwing a lot of resources at trying to launch national lager brands or quite some time, without much success, and I think that CAMRA was much more anti keg in the early days than anti lager. Lager sales were, I think, quite a low percentage of overall beer sales when CAMRA first started up, and it has always been my impression (could be wrong) that the rapid increase in lager sales from the mid-70′s caught CAMRA a bit by surprise.

By: Barm

Barm — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:11:36 +0000

I think Des is retro-fitting concepts to the 1970s here. I don’t believe it was intentionally coined to exclude lager at all. The definition of ale as any top-fermenting beer is an American development of the 1990s.

To put it another way, In 1970s British English, “beer” excluded lager just as much as “ale” does. You still see supermarket aisles divided into “beer” and “lager” sections in the UK.

By: Des de Moor

Des de Moor — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 09:04:23 +0000

I’m just loving this series of postings and the comments they provoke — well done! I’m not sure I agree with Phil on “real ale” being the only case left in English where ale=beer. I’m pretty sure it was quite intentionally coined to exclude lager — fermented with what were then referred to as “bottom fermenting” yeast strains — which in those days in the UK was universally a pasteurised and artificially carbonated industrial product. One of the many inconsistencies thrown up by the persistence of what appeared to be clear and obvious polarities back in the 1960s is that the “real ales” listed in the Good Beer Guide today include a number of cask conditioned “lagers” (and although I suspect quite a few of these are brewed with ale yeasts and not properly lagered, there are exceptions).

I’ve always assumed the term ‘cask’ was popularised by those in the industry who recognised the importance of a distinct category but thought ‘real ale’ carried too much CAMRA baggage. It does have the validity of a technical distinction as it refers to the vessel — a cask has two distinct openings so it can be vented to air as well as tapped and is also waisted to help manage the sediment, whereas a keg has a single opening and is intended to be pressurised.

I don’t think we’ll get anywhere by speculating how much technical knowledge about different forms of conditioning and dispense the average ordinary drinker had at any particular point in time, as the evidence is just so scarce. What is evident is that beer propogandists and journalists haven’t always known what they’re talking about, and often still don’t. The average drinker in my experience is more likely to think in terms of what they like, and perhaps of rather vague ideas about things like provenance, naturalness, heritage etc.

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:33:03 +0000

Definitely weaker than ‘bastard’. It’s almost a separate class of word – too rude (and aggressive) for polite company, but not quite a swearword. “That’s bloody ridiculous” would raise the temperature and/or kill the conversation far more effectively than “that’s bollocks”.

I did think Tandleman could have expressed himself better, though.

By: Bailey

Bailey — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:25:14 +0000

Do you know about the court case over Never Mind the Bollocks? If I remember the story rightly, John Mortimer won it by proving it isn’t a swear word at all, but an old English word meaning ‘nonsense’.

It’s not that rude. I’d say it in front of my Mum.

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:14:24 +0000

On a completely technical note, how rude is “bollocks”? It’s one of the few words that have not migrated to this part of the empire and while I know the anatomical image it evokes and know it’s in the title of the Sex Pistols album, have no idea where it really sits in the sliding scale of rudenesses. Short test => is it worse or weaker than calling someone a bastard?

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:48:20 +0000

“Real ale” does sound horribly antiquated if you take the two words separately (“landlord, kindly furnish me with a pint of ale, and I insist on the ale that is real”). “Ale” meaning beer is almost entirely extinct in the language – apart from “real ale”, the only example I can think of is “steak and ale pie”. But I think most people don’t think of “real ale” as a form of “ale”. “Brown ale” is a type of drink, so is “ginger ale” and so is “real ale”.

One for the CAMRA Counterfactuals drawer – how would the history of the organisation have been different if they’d gone for CAMREB, the CAMpaign for REal Beer? I think it might have made the organisation look more aggressive & hence less appealing to (most) potential members, not to mention making relations with the big brewers even worse. “Got any real ale?” sounds geeky; “Got any real beer?” sounds confrontational.

By: Tandleman

Tandleman — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:44:27 +0000

Bailey – that’s it.

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:28:10 +0000

To my mind, “cask” comes across as a bit affected and technical – actual people in the pub tend to call it “real ale”. I’ve consciously reverted to using the term “real ale” in articles for publication.