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The real problem here is cask ale - the preferred pint in Britain - is ruined by movement. Casks are left to settle in pub cellars for days or weeks before bein

The real problem here is cask ale - the preferred pint in Britain - is ruined by movement. Casks are left to settle in pub cellars for days or weeks before being hooked up to the hand pumps in the bar. The only way this works for beer is to use kegs, which is what most of the World uses but the largest consumer organisation in the UK - CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale - was created to fight against. And with some success - cask brewing is now a massive growth area in the UK. That said, this looks considerably better than the over-priced plastic nonsense from the "onboard shop" or "at seat service" we have to suffer today. I don't think I'd want to go near one without a British Transport Police officer nearby if a bunch of football fans were making a journey to an away game.

robotmay 7y ago
Rather than adopt the keg, I'd much prefer to see a gyroscopically balanced cask :D Doubt we'll see much increase in alcohol sales on trains again now though. A lot of lines already have a ban on drinking due to so many problems. Near me there's a ban between Pontypridd and Merthyr Tydfil specifically, but not the rest of that line.
- Milner08 7y ago
  On the Rhymney line I think the ban runs all the way to Cardiff. I remember people hiding the drinks until they came out of the tunnel and then they'd crack them all open. Also nice seeing Wales represented on here!
  - robotmay 7y ago
    Haha yeah there's not a huge Wales contingent on here from what I've seen!
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I take that line from Chester down to Bristol quite often.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      I’m in Merthyr
gadders 7y ago
Lager is far more popular than cask ale in the UK. Cask ale isn't the preferred pint. https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/food/popularity/beer-cider/all https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/food/popularity/beer-cider/all
- mhh__ 7y ago
  Probably doesn't make a huge difference in outcome, but brand recognition wouldn't be the best metric here because Cask is quite often a local/smaller brewery as opposed to one of the big boys a la San Miguel etc. Lager is also cheaper, which matters if you're defining a pint as a pint in a pub. We are a nation of alcoholics, lots of people drink at home.
Nursie 7y ago
Keg brewing has really taken off here in recent years as well. CAMRA are indeed all about 'real', cask ale. But the organisation was created to fight against the encroaching lagerisation of everything. In the 70s and 80s (from what I can tell, I didn't pass legal drinking age until 1996) the beer scene in the UK was dire. Mass produced lagers were about the only thing on offer, the likes of Carling, Fosters, Stella etc. You'd usually find there was a 'bitter' on tap in most pubs, but it would be a bland, mass produced brown beer like John Smiths or Tetleys. Even in the early 00s many pubs had a bunch of lagers and a concession to other beer types in the form of a single tap of fullers "London Pride". The traditional breweries were suffering and the real art to beer making was being lost in the UK, despite our rich history of it. At the same time, supermarket sales and home drinking were impacting on the pub, which had been a traditional social hub for a lot of the country for a long time. So in stepped CAMRA to promote real pubs and real British beer, with real, varying flavours and an eye to tradition. It was a roaring success, though slow-burning at first. Now they hold massive festivals, local real ale breweries are everywhere, pubs have a wide selection of great stuff again. The craft revolution some years later took them by surprise. Their attitude to good beer in a keg seems to be "well it's not exactly what we're about, but great! People are taking an interest!". AFAICT they've decided the cask is their focus, but so long as we're not going back to the days of five lagers and a substandard 'bitter' on tap in every pub you go to, then we're all good.
- robotmay 7y ago
  Those days were even still around when I first moved to Cardiff. 90% of pubs only served Brains beers, which are...average at best, and lagers. It was so bad that the Cardiff morris dancing side has had a 30-40 year tradition of piling on a bus and going for drinking tours up the South Wales valleys just to find good beer. I must admit that I am partial to asking the bartender to take the sparkler off the cask tap when pouring a pint. I grew up with flat beer and sparklers seem to be an industry way of trying to sell bitter to people who expect beer to be fizzy. Thankfully it has changed for the better, but I am worried about the effects of the lockdown on the upstart good-beer pubs. My local had finally given into my nagging and was permanently keeping a dark beer on tap, which is a rare find here; IPAs and the like are much more popular :D
twic 7y ago
> cask ale - the preferred pint in Britain Not really - according to 2018 on-trade numbers, ale is 24% by value of beer sold, and cask is 55% of ale, so cask ale is just 13.2% of all beer: https://www.marstons.co.uk/docs/reports/2018/on-trade-beer-report-2018.pdf https://www.marstons.co.uk/docs/reports/2018/on-trade-beer-r... (this is published by Marston's, but i believe the data is for the whole industry) Train passengers who want a drink are not necessarily the same demographic as pub-goers, but i'm not sure i'd expect them to skew significantly towards cask ale. > is ruined by movement Which is why the cutting-edge high-technology solution of "bottles" has been invented. Honestly, i find bottled beers usually better than the cask equivalent, even when i'm not on a train, i think because cask is so sensitive to keeping, whereas bottles usually reach you in mint condition. Although it might just be because the bottled versions are sometimes stronger: https://www.adnams.co.uk/articles/adnams-broadside-cask-and-bottle-whats-the-difference-and-why.htm https://www.adnams.co.uk/articles/adnams-broadside-cask-and-...
- robotmay 7y ago
  They also usually add some gas to the bottles, if I remember correctly, which does affect the taste. Not necessarily for the worse, but it is noticeable. It's pretty obvious in Hobgoblin, but I still like the bottle flavour and it even survives being in a car boot in a French summer. I imagine the only reason not to do bottles is because they're liable to being turned into projectiles, but I guess you could just serve it in one of those crap plastic glasses like they would from a cask anyway.
  - krisgee 7y ago
    Real Ale in a bottle would continue to condition slightly so depending on the yeast strain I'd expect bottled beer to change flavour slightly. Also because of the way cask ale is dispensed it's pretty much always oxidized after the first couple of pints are pulled so that might be the change in taste you're noticing, since it's in the bottle it doesn't get oxidized.
- Nursie 7y ago
  > ale is 24% by value of beer sold, and cask is 55% of ale, so cask ale is just 13.2% of all beer: Interesting that they separate out stouts into their own category at 7%. I guess maybe because Guinness dominates stout and that's not a cask ale. I'd have counted it as part of "ale", myself... > Honestly, i find bottled beers usually better than the cask equivalent, Aww no, couldn't disagree more. Cask beer is fresh, bottled beer not so much. Even in a bottle, the fragrant, lighter hoppy aromas disappear pretty quickly, so there are whole dimensions missing from the product... IMHO of course, your preference is yours and not wrong.
globular-toast 7y ago
Cask brewing was a growth area but CAMRA essentially won and made themselves redundant. CAMRA's initial aim was "good beer", but like many things the spirit was forgotten and only the simple rule remained: cask ale (and bottle conditioned ale) is real and anything is is inferior. Since then the US has become a world player in beer and good beer is mainstream now. As far as I know CAMRA are softening when it comes to kegs, especially now there are types that don't involve artificial CO_2/N_2 introduction but last much longer than casks due to no O_2 introduction.

robotmay 7y ago

Rather than adopt the keg, I'd much prefer to see a gyroscopically balanced cask :D Doubt we'll see much increase in alcohol sales on trains again now though. A lot of lines already have a ban on drinking due to so many problems. Near me there's a ban between Pontypridd and Merthyr Tydfil specifically, but not the rest of that line.

Milner08 7y ago
On the Rhymney line I think the ban runs all the way to Cardiff. I remember people hiding the drinks until they came out of the tunnel and then they'd crack them all open. Also nice seeing Wales represented on here!
- robotmay 7y ago
  Haha yeah there's not a huge Wales contingent on here from what I've seen!
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I take that line from Chester down to Bristol quite often.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    I’m in Merthyr

gadders 7y ago

Lager is far more popular than cask ale in the UK. Cask ale isn't the preferred pint. https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/food/popularity/beer-cider/all https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/food/popularity/beer-cider/all

mhh__ 7y ago
Probably doesn't make a huge difference in outcome, but brand recognition wouldn't be the best metric here because Cask is quite often a local/smaller brewery as opposed to one of the big boys a la San Miguel etc. Lager is also cheaper, which matters if you're defining a pint as a pint in a pub. We are a nation of alcoholics, lots of people drink at home.

Nursie 7y ago

Keg brewing has really taken off here in recent years as well. CAMRA are indeed all about 'real', cask ale. But the organisation was created to fight against the encroaching lagerisation of everything. In the 70s and 80s (from what I can tell, I didn't pass legal drinking age until 1996) the beer scene in the UK was dire. Mass produced lagers were about the only thing on offer, the likes of Carling, Fosters, Stella etc. You'd usually find there was a 'bitter' on tap in most pubs, but it would be a bland, mass produced brown beer like John Smiths or Tetleys. Even in the early 00s many pubs had a bunch of lagers and a concession to other beer types in the form of a single tap of fullers "London Pride". The traditional breweries were suffering and the real art to beer making was being lost in the UK, despite our rich history of it. At the same time, supermarket sales and home drinking were impacting on the pub, which had been a traditional social hub for a lot of the country for a long time. So in stepped CAMRA to promote real pubs and real British beer, with real, varying flavours and an eye to tradition. It was a roaring success, though slow-burning at first. Now they hold massive festivals, local real ale breweries are everywhere, pubs have a wide selection of great stuff again. The craft revolution some years later took them by surprise. Their attitude to good beer in a keg seems to be "well it's not exactly what we're about, but great! People are taking an interest!". AFAICT they've decided the cask is their focus, but so long as we're not going back to the days of five lagers and a substandard 'bitter' on tap in every pub you go to, then we're all good.

robotmay 7y ago
Those days were even still around when I first moved to Cardiff. 90% of pubs only served Brains beers, which are...average at best, and lagers. It was so bad that the Cardiff morris dancing side has had a 30-40 year tradition of piling on a bus and going for drinking tours up the South Wales valleys just to find good beer. I must admit that I am partial to asking the bartender to take the sparkler off the cask tap when pouring a pint. I grew up with flat beer and sparklers seem to be an industry way of trying to sell bitter to people who expect beer to be fizzy. Thankfully it has changed for the better, but I am worried about the effects of the lockdown on the upstart good-beer pubs. My local had finally given into my nagging and was permanently keeping a dark beer on tap, which is a rare find here; IPAs and the like are much more popular :D

twic 7y ago

> cask ale - the preferred pint in Britain Not really - according to 2018 on-trade numbers, ale is 24% by value of beer sold, and cask is 55% of ale, so cask ale is just 13.2% of all beer: https://www.marstons.co.uk/docs/reports/2018/on-trade-beer-report-2018.pdf https://www.marstons.co.uk/docs/reports/2018/on-trade-beer-r... (this is published by Marston's, but i believe the data is for the whole industry) Train passengers who want a drink are not necessarily the same demographic as pub-goers, but i'm not sure i'd expect them to skew significantly towards cask ale. > is ruined by movement Which is why the cutting-edge high-technology solution of "bottles" has been invented. Honestly, i find bottled beers usually better than the cask equivalent, even when i'm not on a train, i think because cask is so sensitive to keeping, whereas bottles usually reach you in mint condition. Although it might just be because the bottled versions are sometimes stronger: https://www.adnams.co.uk/articles/adnams-broadside-cask-and-bottle-whats-the-difference-and-why.htm https://www.adnams.co.uk/articles/adnams-broadside-cask-and-...

robotmay 7y ago
They also usually add some gas to the bottles, if I remember correctly, which does affect the taste. Not necessarily for the worse, but it is noticeable. It's pretty obvious in Hobgoblin, but I still like the bottle flavour and it even survives being in a car boot in a French summer. I imagine the only reason not to do bottles is because they're liable to being turned into projectiles, but I guess you could just serve it in one of those crap plastic glasses like they would from a cask anyway.
- krisgee 7y ago
  Real Ale in a bottle would continue to condition slightly so depending on the yeast strain I'd expect bottled beer to change flavour slightly. Also because of the way cask ale is dispensed it's pretty much always oxidized after the first couple of pints are pulled so that might be the change in taste you're noticing, since it's in the bottle it doesn't get oxidized.
Nursie 7y ago
> ale is 24% by value of beer sold, and cask is 55% of ale, so cask ale is just 13.2% of all beer: Interesting that they separate out stouts into their own category at 7%. I guess maybe because Guinness dominates stout and that's not a cask ale. I'd have counted it as part of "ale", myself... > Honestly, i find bottled beers usually better than the cask equivalent, Aww no, couldn't disagree more. Cask beer is fresh, bottled beer not so much. Even in a bottle, the fragrant, lighter hoppy aromas disappear pretty quickly, so there are whole dimensions missing from the product... IMHO of course, your preference is yours and not wrong.

globular-toast 7y ago

Cask brewing was a growth area but CAMRA essentially won and made themselves redundant. CAMRA's initial aim was "good beer", but like many things the spirit was forgotten and only the simple rule remained: cask ale (and bottle conditioned ale) is real and anything is is inferior. Since then the US has become a world player in beer and good beer is mainstream now. As far as I know CAMRA are softening when it comes to kegs, especially now there are types that don't involve artificial CO_2/N_2 introduction but last much longer than casks due to no O_2 introduction.