The Alstroms of Beer Advocate have regularly and kindly invited CASC to fulfill their mission of promoting cask ale by giving them a booth at the Extreme Beer Festival (EBF). Due to the time and space constraints of the festival, doing a proper stillage is not feasible. Due to the large number of people attending, counter-top pins are insufficient volume, run the risk of being hazy, and would take up too much space. The cask solution for these conditions is to serve the firkins vertically using beer engines.

Tools of the Trade at the EBF

Large Tub
Cask Widge
Vertical Extractor
Beer Engine
Channel Lock pliers

Setup at the EBF

EBF is like so many commercial beer festivals in that brewery reps and volunteers only get access to the space a few hours before doors open. Beer is either chilled in buckets or sent through a jockey box. Breweries provide their own gas though ice is usually provided by the venue.

Cask in a hurry is possible. The beer doesn’t get any time to rest after venting so the choice of what to bring relies heavily on prior experience. Beer that presents with a strong acetaldehyde or take a while to settle are not optimal. Neither are breweries that regularly overcarbonate at priming. That said, many beers are delightful immediately after tapping. Choose one of these.

The basic setup is really simple. The firkin goes in the large tub, keystone-side up, with *some* ice. Do not *fill* it with ice immediately as we are not looking for ice cold beer. It’ll take a little bit to find the right balance. Attach the beer engine to your service platform. This could be a  folding table at waist height but higher is better. While wrenches do work to attach the beer engine, choosing the appropriate ratchet is the superior option. Many attachment screws are right next to the glass cylinder at the heart of the beer engine. It takes a surprisingly minimal amount of force to break these. CASC’s Jim Bowser built an ingenious folding bar that works great and matches the ones used at NERAX. If not already attached, a 6′ piece of 1/2″ reinforced (and preferably insulated) tubing is attached to the beer inlet of the beer engine and secured with a plastic Kwik clamp. Make sure that it is well secured or you will have problems with foamy pours. The other end of the tubing has a nut for attachment to the Widge/extractor. There should be a washer as well so try not to lose track of it.

As always, the beer is the priority. We need vent the beer but the shive is not accessible. We’ll be venting through the keystone. Give it a quick scrub with some cleanser or sanitizer. Venting can be done using either the Cask Widge or Vertical Extractor body using the blank end to give a safe surface to hit with the deadblow hammer. My experience has been (particularly with the Vertical Extractors) that either the body will fail to completely breach the keystone due to being so short or the force of whacking it in causes the blank to freeze to the body. Forcibly removing it has cause breakage.

The NERAX Cellaring Crew has developed a technique using a decommissioned (leaky) gravity tap. They are designed to be hit and easily breach the keystone every time. Getting a bit of extra use out of equipment is a good thing. We simply attach a piece of 1/2″ tubing over the spout of the tap, then whack it in. Slowly opening the tap allows for some measure of control over headspace venting and the tubing directs any foam to a convenient receptacle. Once the beer has settled, the gravity tap is removed and the body of the Widge or Extractor gently seated with a few light raps. We are putting this beer into service immediately but it could be left vented and tapped in this manner for a number of days with no detrimental effect.

With the beer vented and tapped, we just need to prepare the beer engine. This is pulling through some cleanser and sanitizer as time allows. At the very least, a hot rinse must be done to dislodge any dried reside from the last use. Of course this is just preventative as beer engines should be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized before storage.

Pulling through is as easy as sticking the free end of the tubing attached to the beer engine into a bucket filled with the appropriate liquid. Sharp, strong pulls are typically required to encourage liquid into a dry engine. Once there is some liquid in there to moisten the seals, the steady, measured pulls of regular service should be used.

Sometimes the engine will operate but just refuse to pull any liquid. Using a bit of tubing (3/8″?) to force water back in through the spout is usually enough to get it working. Another way to introduce water to the cylinder is to use a large turkey baster. Once the engine is pulling smoothly, attach the the cask widge / vertical extractor to the tubing and pull through.

When beer engine is ready and the festival about to begin, pull through whatever liquid may be in the line so that it is empty. Remove the blank from the body and insert the widge or extractor. You’ll have to set the extractor height manually and secure with the nut. Open the valve on the side of the body to allow air in as beer is removed. Pull through two pints or so and discard. Pull another half and evaluate. If it is good, good! If it is hazy and you’re using the extractor, try raising it a bit. There isn’t any time to allow for flavor development so hopefully it is a good representation of the beer. If it is significantly off, you’ll have to make the decision whether or not to serve it. Putting a bad beer in front of customers in the name of using the beer is doing a disservice to the brewery, their brand, and cask itself by creating a bad impression. If necessary, obscure the name of the brewery and give it away as an example of bad cask. This is an educational booth, after all! Spoiled cask happens on occasion and there is no reason to throw the brewery under the bus.

There is only one real thing to troubleshoot when serving with beer engines: excessive foam in the glass. Here’s a list of common causes and possible solutions:

• The line is not air-tight and is pulling air in somewhere. Check the connections at the Widge/Extractor and at bottom of engine. Usually it’s the one on the bottom of the engine.
• The beer is over-conditioned. It is degassing in the cylinder. Close the side valve on the Widge/Extractor body. As additional beer is pulled, the head pressure in the firkin is reduced (increasing volume for set gas concentration). This pulls additional CO2 out of solution to help equalize it. Eventually the keg will become locked and the handle really hard to pull. Open the valve and try the beer. Be careful that you don’t remove too much condition!
• Internal seal leakage. Not much you can do unless you have a seal replacement kit and know how to use it. This one just has to be dealt with for the duration of the event.

Managing the Cask While Serving

Maintaining a setup like this is simple. Periodically check the temperature of the poured beer. If it is too warm, add some ice. Too cold, remove some. The rest of the game is just chasing down the clear beer. The Cask Widge does this automatically by drawing from an inch or so below the surface of the beer. The vertical extractor will have to be manually repositioned a few times. Just reposition as deep as guess the beer has cleared, pull some through, and raise if necessary.

Pouring from a beer engine is a bit of technique. As mentioned before, steady, measured pulls yield the best results. Hold the glass at 45′ about half an inch below the spout. Pull until about half of the volume to be dispensed has been. Right the class and pour into the center to encourage a slight head to rise. Return the pump to its full and upright position before serving.

Many beer engines have a swan’s neck with threading on them for [name of part]. This allows the beer to be delivered directly to the bottom of the glass. Popular in the [region] of England, this serving method is known for raising a thin, tight head on even the most stubborn of beers. Because the spout is submerged in the beer, fresh glass is required every time a beer is poured, otherwise they pose a significant health risk to the customers. In general they are not useful in the festival setting.

At the End of the Night

Breaking down at the end of the night is also easy. If the beer is going into service the following day, just close the vent on the body and fill with ice. The colder temperature will slow down oxidation for a bit while the closed vent prevents loss of condition. The following day requires just re-icing, opening the vent, and pulling through a pint to freshen the line.

When packing things up, plan on cleaning and sanitizing the Widge/extractor along with the beer engine. Be sure that you drain as much sanitizer as possible out of the beer engine before storage! Shaking at various odd angles helps.

The Widge/extractor body should also be dunked in the cleanser and sanitizer. If possible, leave these and any other sanitized bits out to air-dry before long-term storage.

The beer remaining in the firkin is best drained, then the keystone bunged for storage.