The History of Cask Ale (Keep Cask Alive pt 2) | The Craft Beer Channel
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- In the second part of our series about real ale in association with Fuller's Brewery, we visit the 170-year-old Hook Norton Brewery, and witness a brewday on their incredible victorian brewkit. We also interview the sixth generation owner of the brewery about the importance of maintaining the traditions, heritage and processes of British brewers down the ages.
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Good to see Fuller's underwriting this great series!
Cask ales are ALMOST non-existent here in the US…it is TRULY a shame!!!!!!
Although, my favorite local brewery once did a cask offering of my favorite beer on earth, which also happens to be a seasonal brew, so if it was extra rare. I couldn’t believe it.
I also have very fond memories of being on tour in the UK a few times, trying all the casks at the local pubs along the way.
AWESOME video you all made here, thank you for the content and the trip back down memory lane 🍻
I feel ya. I find myself watching this series every now and again dreaming of something I've never had lol
is Hook Norton brewery a UNESCO site? If not, then it should be!
I work as a craft Brewer but this 🤯🤤🍻
During lockdown when Cask was being put into milk bottles and other containers for takeaway's, it really makes a point of how important Cask is in a pub, in a glass. Something that can't be beaten by any other method. No matter how fancy the style you've made is with hops from the future.
After years in the industry I had become so jaded that I barely enjoyed beer anymore. Now that I found work elsewhere I can actually enjoy beer properly again and these videos are wonderful. If you ever come to Toronto I'll show you around.
Great to hear we've helped reignite the passion!
Moved to the US and dearly miss cask ale. Glad you are working to preserve cask ale!
When I lived in Baltimore there were several options for real cask beer. Heavy Seas as a big proponent. Mahaffeys has a couple of hand pull taps. If brewers cask is still going that’s obviously going to have some.
UKBrewing has beer engines for sale. They are based in Lancaster PA.
Great series. I love seeing some newer breweries embrace cask but it's important to acknowledge the older, regional breweries that deliver great, time-tested recipes that your grandfather would recognize. Like Brad said, "A classic doesn't need to change". Good to hear Hook Norton is doing all malt brews again.
a proper pint of cask ale is truly a beautiful thing. it´s been quite some time since I´ve been to the UK and I probably won´t be able to come over for even longer. But I recently moved to Munich and I fell in love with traditional german lager served from ´wooden casks through bavarian taps. It´s amazing to see how those traditional serving methods are kept alive and celebrated in different places.
Love to drink those wooden cask lagers in Munich!
Also living in Munich and I must say I can't see Lagers anymore. Proper English Beers (even in Bottles) are so hard to obtain in Germany. Sucks that the Majority of Germans really only drink Lager Beers and there's no market for english beer styles over here. So I started to grow english hops in my garden and brew my own English Bitters. Hopefully I can go back to the UK next year. Until then.
Ive been stuck in Germany for over 20 years, and I still can't drink Lager or Pilsner. The Germans mainly mock British ale. The are so arrogant about their beer which is a new, and pasteurised invention. You have to drink it cold and fizzy because taste buds are anaesthetized by that. They actually used to drink real ale before Germany was created in the 1890s and they adopted the stupid Bavarian "purity laws". One would think that they had invented beer.
Anyway, I'll be off to the Southampton Arms in a couple of weeks, but first I'll be at The Fat Cat in Ipswich. I haven't been back for more than 18 months, so I am really desperate for the taste and atmosphere of a British pub.
It's really going to be some homebrew experimenting in the future.
I fondly remember Old Hooky as probably the most consistently explosive cask beer I ever encountered, having kept and served hundreds.
Even when racked and left to settle down for several days, Old Hooky casks typically blast out a jet of beer that will hit the roof when vented. It is also not a beer to be tapped by somebody who isn't confident doing it with one good belt - a gentle 2-3 hit approach with the mallet, and the tap will sometimes be blasted back out of the keystone across the cellar floor, followed by a wasteful jet of beer and hops.
Absolutely cracking beer, but never ever to be dispensed via a sparkler, and requires patience and good throughput to arrive in the glass at its best.
OMG! This has to be one of the best RUclips videos I have ever seen! Thank you so much for the absolutely brilliant story about this incredible brewery. What a privelege it is to see the inner workings of a place like this. The only thing that could possibly be better would be to taste it!
Wow thanks so much Robert!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel - Absolutely! Honestly, have you heard of the "living treasures" of Japan? Well this brewery should be designated a "living treasure" of Britain.
Spot George at 3:55 wearing RNLI welly’s. I wish independent beer in Ireland be it cask or keg was more common. Have you thought about going to JW Sweetmans in Dublin city as they brew and sell their own cask beer. Porterhouse is another one selling their own cask beer though for over ten years its been brewed outside the city.
I work at a wonderful old 19th century brewery (St Austell). But Hook Norton is something else!
Feel very fortunate to be able to drink cask beer in the UK, it's a wonderful thing
Guys, I've got tears in my eyes. That's so moving, so nostalgic, just plane beautiful.
Thank you so much for your work, that video and I'm looking forward how the series continues.
THanks for the lovely words Jonas!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel 19:23-19:27 spot the horse taking a drink of ale
So glad you chose this for the history episode, I bloody love Hook Norton. Lucky enough to live nearby (and have done the tour at least 6 times) plus they have a fantastic selection of pubs in the area. Would highly recommend trying the Mild at Ye Olde Reine deer Inn in Banbury.
Guys 785 likes and 0 dislikes just goes to show the quality of the production and our passion for all types of beer (in this case Cask Ale!). Cheers!
Wow hadn't spotted that, thanks!
That’s because dislikes aren’t displayed.
@@einzelganger2939 They are when you use some extensions like the one I use, "return youtube dislikes". For example, now the video has 4 dislikes.
My husband says your outro music sounds like The Allman Brothers, similar to the top gear theme lol. Great vid guys x
Hook Norton was the local brewery of my mother who grew up nearby in the Cotswolds. I grew up in the US and worked as a brewer before starting my own brewery in Vietnam. With all of the breweries I've been to across the world, Hook Norton remains to be the most cherished place I've been lucky enough to visit. Fantastic job as always Craft Beer Channel. Come see us in Vietnam next year!
Would love to! What is the name of your brewery?
@@TheCraftBeerChannel we are a very small brewing company called Origins Bia. We started in the midst of the pandemic, so are just getting back into what we initially set out to do. In the future we will focus on Farmhouse and Vietnamese Wild Ales that help tell the story of the Vietnamese agriculture and the origins of our specialty local ingredients and yeasts. We would also be more happy to show you guys around to some of our other friend with larger craft brewing operations in Saigon and Hanoi that are help shaping the modern beer landscape here!
Jack P does Bia mean food in the name of you brewery. As bia means food in Irish.
@@oscarosullivan4513 Thanks for asking! Bia means beer in Vietnamese. So instead of using brewery or brewing company, we decided to take a local approach on the name.
I freakin’ LOVE cask ale!! God bless you UK genuis brewers. I drink cask whenever i see it
Hook Norton Brewery... One of my absolute favourites for cask ale. You cannot beat a well kept pint of Old Hooky or Twelve Days
Amen - I (Jonny) grew up drinking Old Hooky!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel It is good to see them still using a horse and dray to deliver their beer locally.
A crying shame that Adnams felt it necessary to stop doing that and turn the stables into holiday homes.
Jonny has good taste in beer! Cutting his real ale teeth on Old Hooky is a great start on a beer journey.
You've got me hunting for a cask ale in New England, USA.
Fantastic fresh NEIPAs are a plenty, but the cask ales are ridiculously tough to find.
The hunt is part of the adventure. :)
Absolutely! Being a beer geek is about the journey as much as the beer.
Did you achieve you mission?
Visiting the UK blew my mind about beer
We get Hook Norton beer in bottles here in Australia through the big supermarket owned bottle shop, I really enjoy a bottle of Old Hooky or Haymaker whenever I can find a somewhat fresh one. Most sit there on the shelf and get dusty. I find british brewing fascinating and I am still trying to wrap my head around how to properly brew my own bitter.
Did you see our homebrewed bitter video? ruclips.net/video/4tU3mGLp5CA/видео.html
@@TheCraftBeerChannel sure have. Got to find room in the brew schedule for it.
At our brewing club here in Adelaide, we had a real ale night last winter. A whole bunch of members brewed up bitters, milds, porter's and even an Irish ale. They had four beer engines going, gravity feed and one nitro tap. All was served from corny kegs that had been rigged up to try and emulate cask. All keg primed as well. Super interesting, but felt like we didn't quite get it right.
Lived in different places in South East Asia for 6 years on and off, always miss the cask. Can't beat it
My local brewery! Old Hooky is great on cask.
My local bottle shop does cask takeaway and I’ve just never paid it any mind before, but I will definitely ask them about it tomorrow when I stock up for the weekend. Nice vid!
Yeah give it a go! Hopefully they let you have a taste first so you know it's in great condition.
Great video of a great brewery that carries on the traditional way to brew cask ale. I was lucky enough to tour the brewery a couple of years ago and would happily go back to tour again. Favorite cask ale from Hook Norton is Haymaker. Wonderful pint of cask ale. Unfortunately we don't get any shipped bottled or cask Hook Norton ale shipped to Canada. Time to plan a trip to the UK I think!
Haymaker is a BEAUTIFUL beer - we took quite a few away with us in bottle after the shoot
Love it. Properly keeping cask relevant, showing it as great beer as much as anything else produced, without trying to push it. It’s great. Done.
Cheers Rich
Had some cask ales in Edinburgh 2years ago and fell in love. Hard to find here in Chicago. Sigh. Great video! Cheers 🍻
I wish more breweries,especially brew pube around the world brew cask ale!
Here in the US when I had my first cask ale, i was told (by a friend) it would be warm and flat. I loved it. Great episode. Loved seeing the horse enjoying a pint, thoroughly earned.
Excellent work lads. Just enjoying a very nice bottle of Harveys Prince of Denmark.
Such an awesome beer!
What an absolutely stunning brewery! Every beer just seems to be made with such love and dedication. The people who think cask ale is rubbish have probably never even tried it. What a great video guys and I hope you more of these.
Cheers Steve - three more to come in the series and then HOPEFULLY a series TWO!
As an update to my comment from last year, I returned to the Cotswolds at the end of last month and visited Hook Norton. Excellent tour and the beers are superb. I spent a couple of days on long cycle rides and their 2.8% mild on cask was just the thing for a pit stop at a great pub in Brailes.
I feel so lucky I can get Hook Norton beers from my local bottle shop here in Australia, they are SO GOOD. Interesting to see the place where it's made. If I could afford it I'd drink their beer every day.
I remember the Skimington Castle pub outside Reigate in Surrey, just had the barrels on a tilt behind the counter - best beer Ive ever had
I’ve been on a cask ale vibe after feeling a bit bored of the constant IPAs. Especially now it’s the winter months in the uk. Nothing better than a delicious cask beer on a cold winter night in a pub
I am incredibly jealous of your experience in this episode! Classic cask, a beautiful historic brewery, shirehorses and real old world type brewers who are 100% mentally and physically connected yo their product.
Great way of putting it.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel cheers very much🍻🍻🍻
Man uploaded 2 minutes ago. RUclips sure knows what I like.
Terrifying and gratifying in equal measure.
I’d love to go have a few pints here and tour this brewery…
Absolutely fantastic guys. Such a beautiful brewery, inside and out, you really did it justice. Not had a pint of Hooky for a long time, lovely beer. Looking forward to the next episodes. 🍻
Wow.... 😃 what an amazing and beautiful brewery that is.. the history and people that would be attached to that place.. Thank you so much for sharing this 👍 well done Fellas keep em coming!! Cheers Mike in NZ 😎🍻
Cheers Mike!
We’re keeping cask ale here in Maine USA. I have recently acquired a beer engine a CO2 tank and a supplier offering cask bitter which is excellent. In September I shall be in London touring the city I grew up in. We shall be visiting Fullers pubs with a brother in law and we hope to get to some of the areas that you mentioned already. Any suggestions welcome, like where we should start and who we should contact prior to attending for further information. Great channel thanks. David
A C02 tank?
Sounds worrying 😮
Wow what an awesome look into this wonderful heritage. Loved it!
Could we make Hook Norton an industrial heritage site? What an amazing place! Also, nice little acknowledgement of Brad in the brewery. Great camera work there!
I believe it is already a listed building (and thanks!)
It would be a great heritage site
Don't live in the UK anymore and really miss places like this. Reminds me of The Blackcountry Museum in the Midlands. Brilliant video.
Awesome episode! Great history lesson! Thank you for putting this out. I'm in the US but will definitely be looking out for cask!
Superb video. I was in the Cotswolds a few months ago and meant to visit HN. A great reason to go back!
What a beautiful brewery. Long may it continue
Omg that's a piece of history!
Living in the U.S., it's hard to find cask ale. And when you do, it's often not very good.
I've been the the U.K. twice and I just love those cask ales. I dream of going back for a classic British pint!
A traditional British pub ale from a cask is my ideal version of beer.
Really loving this series. Keep them coming! 🍻
This is love
Great video that has made me what get a pint of old hooky
Greetings from across the pond. Thanks for doing this topic. I'm not familiar with cask ale at all, so this was enlightening. What an absolute cool brewery! And the horse drawn deliveries were icing on the cake. My local brewery did a kellerbier recently, which I really enjoyed. Is there similarities to how cask ale is made or is it quite different.
In terms of how they are brewed there isn't much difference between cask and keg - but it's at serve where the difference is. A Kellerbier would be a similar concept in that the idea is to be as fresh as it is in the cellar, but the process of serve with the secondary fermentation make it's very different.
awesome stuff
That is the most beautiful brewery I've ever seen. I've never had a Hooky beer but I will certainly be seeking them out now and I can't wait to get down to check the brewery out in person!
Fantastic video. Looks like a beautiful brewery and makes me yearn for proper cask ale in the US. Will definitely make it a point to check them out next trip to the UK
How close are you to Baltimore?
@@pja36 About 2 hours
Part 1 Awesome
Part 2 bloody Awesome
Part 3 can't wait 👍
Well done, boys! Super video. Can’t wait for the next 🍺
You're getting good at this ..... smiley face
Great series! Can't wait for the next episode.
I remember cask ale .One day it was good the next it wasn't .So variable.The beer had to be drunk in a very narrow time frame.
We were glad to see Keg beer .Whitbread tankard was one. Tetley keg bitter was another.
Having tried a few modern craft beers, I'll stick with Keg or lager.
My German ancestry spoilt me for Lager.English isn't the same.
I even tried making my own beer.Never made one I liked so gave up
I live in the us there is one place near me to get a cask ale had one saturday loved it
Fascinating video! Now I want to drink some Hook Norton.
Brilliant
Living in Melbourne,Australia has its challenges as to finding good cask ales.I really do miss that about Britain probably the most.How did the cask ales survive though during the pandemic?Hopefully its still alive and everywhere when i get back soon.
Never had any of their beer (yet!) but what a gorgeous brewery and a beauty of a horse. Just like the ones Carlsberg have here in Copenhagen.
Carlsberg have horses?!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel yes, although Carlsburg uses Jutlands whereas Hook Norton uses Shires.
Both heavy horses, Jutlands are a Danish breed and Shires are British.
Fantastic.
Really enjoyed the video. Love real ale and for my money a porter or stout on case can't be beaten, however.....it is so hit and miss when it comes to how a pub store and care for it. I can't tell you how many pints I have been served which were basically vinegar or so past best its a shame. A good micro pub or pub can often have a few well kept ales but generally it's a lottery. A bad pint of ale would out a newbie off for life.
Indeed -and we talk about that in episode one. The irony is that the more people drink, the better real ale gets so we're stuck in a spiral as fewer are drinking!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel It is shame but if I am at a local festival or by a micro pub I will work my way through the board. Normally a pint of ale is good value compared to the macro beers on offer at most pubs. You are right, if we could get more people into ale, the quicker we empty the barrel and less risk it is going get pass it's best.
This is amazing - thanks for creating and sharing!
Loving these videos on cask.
Cheers 🍻
Excellent Video!
Very enjoyable watch that.
Great video and great series, cheers guys.
This is so cool, amazing series, thanks guys!
An amazing beeramentary again guys. Really makes me want to drink quality cask and visit beautiful places in GB. The 1980s Top gear music is a bit grating but hey theres no Jeza which is good. My most memorable pint of cask was a Masham Ale by Theakston. 7.2 ipa in the 90s. I was told it was only brewed when they initiated a new cooper. Maybe you cold tell if this is true or fake news from the 90s!. Looking forward to the next production. thanks guys.
It might have been brewed to celebrate a new cooper - so few of them around these days, or even in the 90s
Loving the series!!
Love this documentary lads
You guys are doing the Lord's work.
We are truly blessed.
Great stuff! Can’t wait for pt. 2 🍻
You mean part 3?!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Yes!
Look at those Mash Tuns….come on Old Hooky
I might be an American, but I love the British Hops better too. It could be that my great.......grandfather Samuel F. Waddington was a hop merchant from Kent.
No way that's cool!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel He actually was arrested for fixing the price of hops, but it was to help the hop farmers to survive the year do to a bad harvest.
Good to see proper beer, in a traditional way, not an American or a pineapple in sight !!! This is a true CRAFT
Looking forward to seeing a northern pint, that flat beer doesn't do it for me, role on episode 3!
The beer isn't flat at all - simply that by the time we got to filming some of the head had dissipated. Sadly the time between pouring and recording can be up to 30 mins.
And in episode one we have a southern pub using sparklers. It's not just the north!
I need to get to England! Anyone for an adventure?
You think some breweries could push their "experimental" beers on cask a bit more? Some of the modern breweries, cloudwater, track, north etc do produce great beer for cask but I always kind of wish they did their big beers. Back in 2017 (I think) I had Heavy Lord with coffee on cask at Extravaganza and it was mad. Big dark beers seem made for cask, but you never really see them.
Well I think the main reason is that it's such a risk - you need to sell the beer in 3 days, but you'll do well to do that with something like Heavy Lord in a pub!
How do they control fermentation temperature? It shoud be diffrent in summer and winter. I''m a home brewer and i can control with glycol chiller but how they do it?
Well these buildings were built to maintain a temp pretty well, but also many use plate immersion chillers - by which I mean literal giant plates of metal flowing with water internally that go into the beer to heat or chill it.
what I like is no head on your beer, go into a witherspoons by me and I'm the only person asking to take the sparkler off
Are there any differences in the actual vessels used for storing/dispensing cask vs keg or is the distinction fundamentally about the method of carbonation?
The vessels are very different too because you have to vent the beer before serving. So most casks have a hole for the tap and a whole in the top to vent, and are racked on their side to pour. Kegs will be upright, with one exit only!
When we visited some 15 or so years ago the reason they gave for not using the Koelschip was due to EU regulations. If they start reusing it I'll accept I've finally discover the first and possibly only benefit of Brexit.
Hmmmm not sure about that one. There have been plenty of breweries doing it in the UK for several years, and many more would have been doing it in the 70/80s when we were in the EU too.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel it's just what the guide said.
@@MadeByMartyn of course! Not doubting you, just doubting the guide haha
somebody get that horse another pint!
Horses love it, way back when when horses were the primary delivery method they would have a pint waiting at every pub.
By rhe time they'd done their routes they'd have gone through quite a fair amount of beer 😅
Nostalgia and tradition is great but sometimes you have to move with the times, there are fairly glaring reasons why breweries and pubs have moved away from cask and imo on the whole the none cask beers craft breweries are producing are better than whats available on cask by themselves or more traditional breweries.
I say this as someone who does enjoy cask beers and i do tend to drink cask beer when out on a session for a few reasons but I can see why it’s on the decline and I wouldn’t say the death of cask beer would mean the death of pubs.
We would never champion tradition for the sake of tradition, so you have a point but it is worth remembering that about 20% of the beer drunk in pubs is cask. Less than 4% is "craft keg". So the loss of cask would be a significantly bigger issue than the loss of craft. Not just for pubs but the circa 1500 breweries that focus on it. It is a vital part of the pub and brewing scene and a very, very different part to the keg end, where the beers are very different. Cask definitely could modernise to compete but it shouldn't be at the expense of its traditions - comparing it to keg isn't always valid.
Is there any temperature control? How much do their beers differ from a summer brewed ale to a winter brewed identical ale?
We have a paraflow hear exchanger. It's fed from the cold liquor tanks above. We can adjust the flow rate to control the run in temp. The seasons will affect the temp of the cold liquor above so we would slow the wort flow in the summer and increase in the winter to hit our target of 64/66F.
There we go! At Harvey's they have temp plates in the fermenters but the head brewer says there will still be some temp variation throughout the year.
It's truly an art form, and like uber eats but with the smell of horse farts mixed in...
is this Allman Brothers?
Haha we did a double take first time we heard it too!
Fantastic video. What a brewery Hook Norton is. Long may it last.
Guessing George plays rugby
Haha I reckon so
You must be down south,that beer beer looks flat ,no head
Why wouldn't you speak about the recipes and flavours of their beers? I kept waiting for it the whole episode... In my side of the world this isn't available and at least some words about them would've been nice
I guess this video wasnt really about the beer but the place - we have LOTS of videos talking about best bitter flavours. We will be back though to do just that one day.