Here at Crafty Towers, we love a good pun. Or a bad pun, if we’re perfectly honest. We love real ales too, what with the site’s founder being born in Burton-upon-Trent, home of the pale ale, and being weened on cask beer. It’s something you don’t see a great deal of in Australia – in fact, you don’t see it much anywhere outside the UK – but the popularity of genuine cask ales on the rare occasions they are poured here, such as the much-loved Cask Off events at Good Beer Week, shows there is a demand.
It’s one that The Local Taphouse crew has been keen to supply for some time. Almost two years ago, they bought 20 casks and announced plans for cask rooms and hand pumps at their venues and, while not all of their plans have yet been realised, they are making use of their casks at an event next month called Rock The Cask Bar. Ten Aussie breweries have brewed an existing or new beer as a traditional real ale and all will be poured at the venues on February 8. Later in the year, there are plans for a Cask Bar at the Great Australasian Beer Spectapular too.
“We are using the casks we purchased a couple of years ago,” says Taphouse co-owner Steve Jeffares. “Plus NNL Brewery Services are providing assistance and advice for the event.
“We have put real ales on at the bars before [although there are no plans for anything] permanent as we think that – for now – they are best suited for occasional events such as Rock the Cask Bar.
“I think there is definitely a niche of Australian craft beer fans and British expats who will drink proper cask conditioned cask ales from time to time. Sourcing great Australian examples of real ale, looking after the beer and dispensing it correctly is critical to ensuring their experience is a positive one.”
Steve recently returned from a year living in New York, during which he toured many breweries and beer venues while conjuring up more grand beery plans for the future. And, while he says his experience of cask ales in the States, where it is an increasingly popular niche too, was hit and miss, he cites sampling Left Hand Milk Stout on cask at Blind Tiger in Manhattan as “Sublime.”
In terms of picking the representatives for Rock The Cask Bar, he says: “It’s always hard choosing breweries when you have a finite number of tap positions. With this event, we are setting up a separate bar and the logistics are challenging so we limited it to just ten breweries.
“We wanted breweries from around the country represented and then decided on breweries who had talked with us about casks before. We hope to make this an annual event which can accommodate more breweries in the future.”
For the first one, the beers that will be pouring are:
- Amber 2.0 (Riverside, NSW)
- Scotch Ale (Red Hill, VIC)
- Dry hopped Hightail (Mountain Goat, VIC)
- Apocalypso IPA (Illawarra, NSW)
- Barrel Fermented Hop Hog (Feral, WA)
- Dry hopped Bling IPA (Bridge Road, VIC)
- Angry Man Pale Ale (Murray’s, NSW)
- English Pale Ale (Bright, VIC)
- ESB (Hargreaves Hill, VIC)
- Commonfolk Brown Ale (Mornington Peninsula, VIC)
The event kicks off at noon at both Taphouses in St Kilda and Darlinghurst. Samples and tasting notes will be supplied for all beers and there will also be live entertainment.
