Simon Johnson at Reluctant Scooper has set the topic for The Session #48: Cask, Keg, Can, Bottle: Does dispense matter? As he writes, “The question is simple but your answer may not be.”
The method of beer dispense often raises the hackles of even the most seasoned beer drinker. Some evangilise about libving, breathing cask as being the one true way. Others heartily support the pressurised keg. The humble tinny has its fans. Lovers of bottled beer, either conditioned or pasturised, can be equally voiciferous.
Perhaps you think that one method magnifiies a beer’s impact. Perhaps you won’t try a beer if it’s dispensed in a way you don’t agree with. Perhaps you’ve tried one beer that’s been dispensed every which way.
The next Session is Feb. 4, and of course a Friday. Many American brewpubs and bars roll out a cask-conditioned beer on Friday, so there may be an opportunity for some compare and contrast.
This arguement is attracting much attention within the beer snobs here in the U.K. The difference being that cask is the traditional method of dispense in the U.K therefore it seems peverse for a microbrewery to keg their beers. There is also an assumption that keg beers must be pasturised and filtered. Belgium, for instance does not have a problem with living beer in kegs.
In the U.S.A it was more natural for new breweries to use kegs because they were not bound by a traditional view of what is right or wrong.