Wishlist #1; Proper Keg Bitter
Keg bitter. There's a reason why brewers brew it, pubs stock it and punters drink it. Reliability. Cask beer can be shagged up at every turn; on too long/tapped too early in the pub, poorly stored by the distributor, infected when it left the brewer. Keg gives a drinker the confidence that their beer will taste the same every time they have it, regardless of where they buy it.
A shame, then, that most keg bitter tastes of wet cardboard. What a great opportunity going begging - a ready-made market who (hopefully) wouldn't be scared off by a slightly tastier pint than the usual smoothflow dross. A quality keg bitter from a successful cask brewer could be an entry-point into the rest of their portfolio for non-cask drinkers. I'd rather walk into a pub I don't know and have the choice of quality-keg than only potentially-dodgy casks.
A shame, then, that most keg bitter tastes of wet cardboard. What a great opportunity going begging - a ready-made market who (hopefully) wouldn't be scared off by a slightly tastier pint than the usual smoothflow dross. A quality keg bitter from a successful cask brewer could be an entry-point into the rest of their portfolio for non-cask drinkers. I'd rather walk into a pub I don't know and have the choice of quality-keg than only potentially-dodgy casks.
Totally agree. Surely all but the most dementedly hardcore CAMRA goblins have got over the demonisation of keg now, right? I hope so anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a Bitter (although it's pleasantly bitter) but Meantime High Saison is a cracking example of a home-grown keg beer that's absolutely packed with flavour. There's no reason why there couldn't be a decent bitter equivalent.