cavers
11-16-2009, 08:05 PM
Hi all -
In October I spent two weeks in the UK, mostly staying in Oxford. Needless to say, I spent long hours in that gorgeous city's gorgeous pubs, quaffing pints (real pints! Not the silly 16 oz. sleeves we get served in British Columbia!) of Old Hooky, Wayland Smithy, and many, more. It was fantastic. My visit (fortuitously) coincided with the Oxford Beer Fest, too.
I came away eager to learn more about cask ale. I hadn't had much experience with it out here, as cask ale is still pretty rare in these parts. But after two weeks of it, I was sold. So I Googled "how make cask ale" and countless permutations of those words, and sure enough, there were lots of pages explaining how to fill and tap casks (spiles, bungs, hammering things into things, venting things, etc.). But it looked a lot more complicated than I thought it'd be.
Here's my question. Apologies for the long lead-up. If I were going to have a party and serve the whole thing in one night, could I simply rack my batch from the secondary into any vessel with a spigot, and then serve pints from that tap? Or, even simpler, use my autosiphon as a pump and serve straight from the secondary? Would either of those rough-'n'-ready techniques yield a tasty, fresh pint? Or is there something magical about spiles and bungs and mallets that I'd be missing out on?
In October I spent two weeks in the UK, mostly staying in Oxford. Needless to say, I spent long hours in that gorgeous city's gorgeous pubs, quaffing pints (real pints! Not the silly 16 oz. sleeves we get served in British Columbia!) of Old Hooky, Wayland Smithy, and many, more. It was fantastic. My visit (fortuitously) coincided with the Oxford Beer Fest, too.
I came away eager to learn more about cask ale. I hadn't had much experience with it out here, as cask ale is still pretty rare in these parts. But after two weeks of it, I was sold. So I Googled "how make cask ale" and countless permutations of those words, and sure enough, there were lots of pages explaining how to fill and tap casks (spiles, bungs, hammering things into things, venting things, etc.). But it looked a lot more complicated than I thought it'd be.
Here's my question. Apologies for the long lead-up. If I were going to have a party and serve the whole thing in one night, could I simply rack my batch from the secondary into any vessel with a spigot, and then serve pints from that tap? Or, even simpler, use my autosiphon as a pump and serve straight from the secondary? Would either of those rough-'n'-ready techniques yield a tasty, fresh pint? Or is there something magical about spiles and bungs and mallets that I'd be missing out on?