Sauced

Tackling the Cask Festival

70 beers, one liver. What to do?

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 07, 2011 at 11:09AM 3 Comments

Washington brewers bring their best cask beers to Seattle Center this Saturday.

Photo: infosthetics.com

On Saturday, April 9 the Washington Beer Commission’s annual Cask Festival comes to Seattle Center (info here).

This is an auspicious occasion indeed, a chance to try many of your favorite beers—not to mention some new-to-you brews—in unfiltered form.

But there are going to be 70 different beers there. You can’t try them all, I’m sorry to say. And while none of them is likely to be a bad choice, here are some you won’t want to miss:

Herbert’s Legendary Cask Festival Ale: This is the official beer of the Cask Festival. Not trying it would be like going to Disney World and eschewing Space Mountain. It’s just not done. (Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, on the other hand, is highly overrated, according to my fifth grade diary. So feel free to skip that one.)

Hop Villain Black IPA: Black IPA is also called Cascadian Dark Ale by people who want to ensure that the Northwest gets the credit for developing the style. It’s basically a hoppy IPA but with roasted malt flavor. Hop Villain is made by Big Al’s Brewing in White Center. (Elliott Bay Brewing is also offering its Black Ops black IPA, that one is fermented with a Belgian yeast strain and dry-hopped (more hops are added when the beer goes in the cask) with “three different hop varieties,” per the description.)

Black Raven in Redmond is responsible for some really great beer. Its Belgian IPA is made “with lemongrass, lemon thyme, black lemon and whole leaf Citra hops” and available on cask at the festival.

Fremont Brewing is definitely one to watch among the local micros. The vanilla-bean flavored Totonac B-Bomb is a first-place people’s choice winner this year. It was aged in bourbon barrels, as was the Kentucky Dark Star Imperial Oatmeal Stout. To which I say: yum.

Schooner Exact (which started in West Seattle but has since moved to SoDo) is another kick-butt local brewery. It has concocted a signature IPA for Brave Horse Tavern, Tom Douglas’s new bar that opens today. The festival is your chance to try it on cask first.

Just last night I had my first pint of Silver City Brewing’s Whoop Pass Double IPA. For a beer that hoppy to be so well-balanced…very impressive. Try it on cask this Saturday.

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Tags: Beer Festivals, Cask Beer, Washington IPAs, Cascadian Dark Ale

Fan of New Belgium’s Fat Tire Ale?

Then you’ll be wanting to try a dry-hopped cask version.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 10, 2011 at 09:30AM 0 Comments

Fat Tire’s on cask this Thursday at two Seattle bars.

PHOTO: New Belgium

Seattle Beer News points us to two pubs tapping casks of New Belgium Brewing’s Fat Tire amber ale—which, when I was in high school, was the most coveted beer of all. This Thursday, February 10, Mulleady’s Irish Pub is offering a cask of Fat Tire dry-hopped with Centennial hops, the Latona Pub has one with Bravo hops. (Note on Latona: the food rocks.)

What’s dry-hopping? It’s when hops are added to the beer in the cask. Dry-hopping brings on the hops flavor and aroma without more hops bitterness.

What’s the difference between these two casks of beer? Centennial hops are American hops that have been around since the 1970s. (I picture them wearing bell bottoms and attending wife-swap parties). They are characterized by citrus and floral favors and a strong “bittering value.” For some good information on the Bravo hop—a newish hop developed right here in Washington—read this.

I say you try both.

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Tags: Pub Grub, Beer, Wallingford, Magnolia Village, Cask Beer

Better Boozing: Cask ‘N’ Comfort Mondays at the Hopvine

Once you go cask you’ll never go back.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 03, 2011 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Monday means cask beers and fine soups at the Hopvine

A new year is a time for fresh starts and second chances, or so I hear.

If you’ve ever been burned by less than stellar service at The Hopvine Pub on Capitol Hill, you might consider giving it another shot. I’ve been doing just that for the past few weeks and have been impressed. I’ve had great encounters with the staff and am loving the new menu and the daily soups for which Hopvine is famous—a rich Southwest pumpkin, a celery concoction funked up with roquefort cheese. So right on a cold day.

And there’s this. Every Monday at 6pm, the bar is tapping a different cask from some fine brewer. Go by there for a pint once a week, and you’ll develop your beer palate quickly.

The reason to get excited about drinking beer from a cask, as opposed to a regular keg, is that the beer goes in unfiltered and undergoes a second fermentation in the container. (Keg beers, on the other hand, are filtered and “force carbonated.”) Cask beer is thus always super fresh and usually produced locally because the beer can only last a little while in the container. In other words: once you go cask you’ll never go back.

Happily, Cask ‘N’ Comfort coincides with Hopvine’s happy hour, which runs from 5 to 7pm daily.

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Tags: Pub grub, Capitol Hill, Beer, Better Boozing in 2011, Cask Beer