Cask 2019: Why it rocked; Why it sucked

I had some fantastic beers at the weekend.

To be more specific, I had some fantastic beers between 6 and 11 PM on Saturday at Testbed1 under railway arches in Bermondsey. Beers that, for the most part, will never be seen again anywhere, at any other time. And, fairly obviously, that is part of the problem.

I absolutely loved the Cask 2019 beer festival, if indeed one can call a one-day event, divided into two sessions a 'festival'. I appreciated the beers immensely, and several of them will go down as some of my favourites of 2019. But we have a problem here. And in attempting to outline some of the underlying issues facing the beer industry in 2019, the organisers have only served to create further problems. In a sense.

The beers

Pint drinker that I am, I managed nine 'full Benjamins', four of which scored a rating of 8/9, which is essentially unprecedented for a single session. Signature Brew's 'Jam Sour' (4.0%) was a delightful Raspberry Berlinerweisse, balancing fruity sweetness with an edgy sourness that was altogether delightful. Brewheadz 'Crumble in the Jungle' brought Rhubarb Crumble and custard to the sour format, balanced by a pleasant desserty sweetness that made me - in the words of Greg Wallace - very, very happy.

An atmospheric venue

North Brewing Co. supplied a Triple Fruited Gose, and while it lacked the saltiness that one might expect from the style, it packed in so many of my five a day that it was more smoothies than beer. And then there was Weird Beard's Kill Pils. A 5% ABV cask lager that proved once and for all that pale lager-style beers can not only work in a cask format, but it can be fucking bloody brilliant.

The other four beers I tried - from Harbour, Abbeydale (a Chai stout), Burning Soul, Wilderness and Framework - were also pretty damn good, it has to be said. There wasn't a dud amongst them and quality and conditioning and, importantly, temperature were pretty flawless. The beer was awesome. Absolutely awesome.

But - first world problems alert - it was a tragedy and a travesty that I lacked the capacity to try more of the 30-odd beers on offer. And that's not even considering the completely different range available during the earlier midday to 5 PM session.

As I said, I'm fully in favour of the aims behind this event.

The organisers were trying to showcase how great cask beer can be. I get that. I'm a hundred and a million percent behind that objective.

The Cask 2019 food wasn't bad either...

They were aiming to highlight the senselessness in the cask-keg price differential. I get that too. I think it's insane that people expect to pay lower prices for real ale when it requires more work and has a higher existential volatility (that's the chance of it going off and becoming unsellable) than keg or small-package beer. I'd be quite happy to pay more for really good cask beer.

The £5/pint charged was actually reasonable value, particularly for the stronger beers. And with three pints and a glass included in the £20 entry, it was far from extortionate. Frankly, I'd call it a bargain.

But even if you only drank halves; even if you only shared halves with someone else there is absolutely no fucking way that you'd come close to getting through all of the beers on offer during the whole day.

Most of the beers were cask one-offs - in the unlikely event that you'll ever find them on draught anywhere else, they'll be keg. Or keykeg. or 'craft keg', or however else you want to describe something that is clearly not cask.

But why oh why oh why must it be thus?

Yes, there is very good cask beer available now in lots of places but it tends to be stylistically limited to pale and golden ale, stout, porter and other traditional British styles. And it also tends to be confined to 'sessionable' strengths. Not too strong, but not too weak either. Breweries and drinkers are equally guilty of playing it horrendously safe.

Likewise, there is lots of stunningly good, experimental beer out there too. And it's almost always not cask.

I can't be the only person in the country who likes exciting, innovative, interesting and new beer who also happens to strongly prefer to drink cask, can I? (Judging by the sell-out attendance at Cask 2019, I'm obviously not.)

But is it really fair to give us a taste of Heaven for just a few hours a year?

The experimental beer fans will go back to their keg. The cask fans will go back to their standard cask beers. Both sectors doomed to miss out for all but a few hours every year.

Is that right? Am I wrong?

Surely, this sort of fabulous beer should be available to all of us, all of the time? No?