Pratt Street Alehouse Cask Night

I finally got myself to a Pratt St Alehouse Cask Night this past Tuesday. They were tapping two new beers and I just had to try them out. Since I can’t think of a better way to phrase it myself, I’ll simply clip their description from the announcement:

The Bishop’s Indulgence, an 8% stout brewed with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans (see the blog archive for details of the brew). As well as having a kilderkin of The Bishop’s Indulgence aged on American Oak on the beer engine, we will have a glass ended firkin of Best Bitter dry hopped with Maryland Chinook on gravity pour in the lounge for a more “interactive” cask ale drinking experience .

The Bishops Indulgence:

This is a great beer… if you like heavy chocolaty stouts… and I certainly do. Deep, dark and rich… Very much like a Guinness in weight but with a heck of a lot more flavor. The dark chocolate flavors and aromas were very prevalent with a hint of caramel sweetness to offset the bitter. Its oak aged, but I really didn’t detect much of the oak flavor but I think the chocolate overwhelmed it.

It was served in a 10oz glass which is fine for a beer like this. Believe me, you won’t want to chug this beer. It’s meant to be sipped and savored, like a fine Bourbon. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to risk drinking more than one glass of this delicious, but very potent, brew.

On a side note, one of my fellow patrons drove up from Annapolis simply to try this beer and he loved it. I appreciated the irony when I discovered he’s a Lutheran Pastor.


The Dry Hopped Best Bitter:

I’m already a fan of the standard Oliver Best Bitter. A Bitter is probably best described as the British equivalent to the American Pilsner. Light in alcohol it’s the perfect beer to drink if you’re going to be hanging out with some friends and drinking a few pints. It’s the perfect example of a Session Beer. However, unlike the American Pilsner, the British Bitter tastes great… Like most Brit Ales, Bitters tend to be low in hops. However, in this case they dry hopped it with Chinook hops.

I like using dry hops in my home brewing because while I love the flavor and aroma of the hops, I don’t necessarily enjoy the bitterness. Normally you add the hops to the brew kettle during the boil. The boil will release more alpha acids, and increase the bitterness of the final brew. Unfortunately, the boil will also cause the flavor and aroma components to boil off. With dry hopping you add hops to the beer after the fermentation is complete and let them sit for a while and leach the hoppy goodness into the brew. In this case you can see the big bag full of hops floating off to the right side of the firkin. (please note the artistic back lighting… very nice…).

Anyway, the beer itself was great. Nice and light weight wise, but full of the citrus flavor and aroma of the Chinook hops. Unfortunately I don’t know if they’ll make this one again, but I certainly hope they do.

I'd also like to point out the cool springloaded stand that the firkin is sitting on. As the firkin was drained, the springs were unloaded and tilted the firkin up at an ever increasing angle, thereby always providing the perfect pour.

As always, the atmospere and service was great.  Plus I finally got a chance to meet, and have a pint, with Steve the Brewer. Good times!