Latest news with #caskale
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Cask ale is one of Britain's greatest inventions – and could be making a comeback
There aren't many pubs like the Limeburner's Arms. When I visited this north Lancashire classic recently with a friend, three separate groups turned to greet us warmly as we entered, while the pub's genial landlord, Joe Moore, got around using a couple of long brooms as crutches (he told me it was due to a recent operation). Payment was cash only – I had just enough shrapnel for two drinks – and the loos were outside. And then there's the cask ale. Travel around England's best pubs and you'll encounter many ways of serving it: sometimes poured straight from the barrel ('gravity'); sometimes into a jug before being decanted into a glass; sometimes through a swan-neck spout; sometimes part-poured, chilled, then topped up to order; and, particularly in the Midlands and North, sometimes through a sparkler, producing a thick collar of foam. At the Limeburners, though, a hybrid system I'd never seen before was in use: part gravity, part sparkler, with some sort of pump arrangement, the cask set on a low surface so Joe had to crouch to pour. It was a remarkable sight – but then again, cask ale is a remarkable product. Not everyone gets it. In a world where serving Guinness is regarded as fascinatingly arcane, the genuine quirks of cask ale can be off-putting. It's Heath Robinson, old blokes with extravagant unkempt beards and 'Kidderminster Beer Fest '93' T-shirts, it's Dungeons and Dragons. And yet – crucially – it's just about as good as beer gets. It's absolutely delicious. Well, sometimes. Too often it's warm, when it should be cellar temperature (12C). It's frequently too flat; while it has less dissolved CO2 than keg beer – which makes it so drinkable – it shouldn't be like a millpond. And too often it's too old: cask ale really only lasts three days on the bar, so it needs to be drunk fresh. This is presumably why so many pubs stopped serving it after Covid: too much of a risk. Some breweries have also stepped back, most notably Carlsberg Marstons, which decided late last year to close the historic Banks's Brewery in Wolverhampton. (Carlsberg Marstons, by the way, also produce 'Fresh Ale', a hand-pulled product that is not cask ale. Unlike cask ale, it's finished at the brewery; real cask ale continues to ferment in the pub cellar, arriving genuinely fresh in the glass. Watch out for it.) Depressing stuff, but maybe the future is brighter than it seems. Figures gathered by YouGov for this year's Cask Ale Week (September 18–28) show that 25 per cent of 18–24-year-old beer drinkers – 'Generation Z' – now regularly order cask ale at the pub, a more than 50 per cent increase on a similar survey in 2024. And why wouldn't they? Most of Britain's best small breweries make it, and many make it exceptionally well. I saw this first hand whilst researching my guide to the 500 Best Pubs in England. I sampled local favourites all over the country, beers that you wouldn't know about unless you were in their neck of the woods. Wensleydale Brewery, which I enjoyed at the George and Dragon in Hudswell; Bridgetown, which I loved at the Albert Inn in Totnes; Hattie Brown's, savoured at the King's Arms in Langton Matravers; and Drenchfoot, which was delicious at the Blackfriars Tavern in Great Yarmouth – among many others. Cask ale is a genuine grassroots culture. Many sneer at the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), but it's consumer-led, with its (admittedly sometimes quirky) direction decided by members, not the bottom line. Take Bass: its current revival was driven by a small group of old geezers who kept a record of which pubs were serving it around the country. The multinational that owned it wasn't interested, until they saw how its popularity was growing. Pure people power. Purely British, too, which may be part of the problem. English people will go into raptures over food and drink they've 'discovered' in Spain or Italy, yet ignore what's right in front of them. A good friend of mine once argued that cask ale would be more popular if it were called 'caskalé' and came from near the Med, and there's definitely some truth in that. Look at the baffling popularity of Peroni. All the same, I remain optimistic. Cask ale is one of the fundamental elements of an English pub: even those that stopped selling it after Covid-19 have largely kept their handpumps, albeit sitting forlornly unused. Cask has made dramatic comebacks before, most notably in the 1970s thanks to Camra. Perhaps its new generation of drinkers can bring cask ale rushing back once more, in all its glorious idiosyncrasy.
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Ken Don obituary
My colleague Ken Don, who has died aged 80, was a passionate real ale brewer who played a key role in saving Maris Otter, considered the finest variety of malting barley. He spent most of his career at the Young's Ram Brewery in Wandsworth, south London, where the ruling Young family was committed to cask-conditioned beer. Ken was born in Alloa, in Clackmannanshire, the son of Ian Don, who worked in a local glass factory, and his wife, Margaret (nee Cook). He was educated at Alloa academy and trained as a brewer at Alloa Brewery, where the main product was Skol lager. Keen to broaden his skills, he went on the brewing and distilling course at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. As a fully accredited brewer, he worked at breweries in Burton upon Trent, Watford and Wrexham before joining Young's in 1980; he spent the rest of his career there. In 1969 he married Dorothy Dunbar, who worked as an administrator at BP's plant at Grangemouth, and they had three daughters. After the family moved to London, Ken maintained his Scottish roots by taking a keen interest in both rugby and Motherwell football club. As head brewer at Wandsworth, he enthusiastically upheld Young's support for cask ale at a time when many other brewers were developing pasteurised and artificially carbonated keg beers. The Young's Ram Brewery was fiercely traditional. It delivered beer to local pubs by horse-drawn drays and produced Bitter, Special Bitter and the seasonal Winter Warmer using the finest ingredients – Maris Otter barley and Fuggles and Goldings hops. Ken was shocked to learn in 1989 that seed merchants and farmers were de-listing Maris Otter. They were replacing it with 'high yielding' new varieties that grew more to the acre. He joined with a handful of other brewers to offer contracts to farmers to continue to grow Maris Otter. They felt its rich biscuit aroma and flavour were essential to the character of their beers. They were successful. Banham seed merchants in Norfolk and Warminster Maltings in Wiltshire bought the rights to Maris Otter and it is now used by scores of British brewers and exported to 20 countries. Ken faced a new challenge in 2006 when Young's brewery closed. John Young, the chairman who had driven its success, had died and there were no members of the family who wanted to continue brewing. Young's became a pub company, owning more than 200 outlets and it still needed beer. The Young's ales were transferred to Charles Wells's brewery in Bedford, where Ken spent a month treating the local water and training his yeast culture to work in Wells's enclosed conical fermenters, which were quite different from the open vessels at the Ram. The Bedford versions were greeted with enthusiasm by Young's demanding drinkers. They gather in Young's pubs every December to taste the new version of Winter Warmer and compare it to previous vintages. After Ken retired, the beers moved again, to Banks's Brewery in Wolverhampton, which is due to close. Marston's Brewery in Burton will be their next home, where they will honour Ken's great contribution to traditional beer. Ken is survived by Dorothy and their daughters, Karen, Lesley and Susan.
