Yet another beer. The decision to try this one was based on name alone. Look at the little ferrets staring at the beer cask: it has to be good!
When doing some "research" on this one, I came across information in Wikipedia that explained some confusion I've had at some of the pubs around here. If you ask what they have on draft, they ask you if you want beer or ale (and sometimes cider). I thought ale was just a kind of beer (and I think by US standards, it is) but here I think I am border-line offensive when I group the two into one word.
A "real ale" (a term invented in 1973 by the Campaign for Real Ale -- hmm), like Fursty Ferret, can start just like beer as we know it. But, has these additional restrictions:
"(the beer is) matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide"
In plain English, this means that the yeast that makes all beer ferment isn't removed from the beer and nothing is done to kill the yeast. The live yeast is in the bottle or cask or keg when you open it and when it is served. In theory, this makes the brew more complex since it is maturing right up until it hits your lips. The same fermentation process also keeps the ale fresher. Most beer in the USA is filtered to remove the yeast and then flash pasteurized (heated) to kill the yeast action in the beer.
The second part of the statement above, regarding the use of carbon dioxide, means that almost all beers in the USA would be disqualified from 'real ale' status. Most bars in the US have tanks of pressurized CO2 that push the beer through the tap. To be a real ale, this isn't allowed. Many (if not all) of the pubs here have hand pumps for the real ales. They look like the taps in the US, but the guy behind the bar has to pump the tap to draw the beer from the cask.
A real ale is almost guaranteed to be fresh, since once a cask is opened, it has a life of only a few days before the exposure to oxygen makes it go funky.
Get all that? Good! Now sit back and enjoy some furrific advertising:
Thursday, May 15
These Pretzels Are Making Me Fursty
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4 comments:
Interesting stuff. I wiki'd Mead (seemed like a possible upcoming taste adventure) and came upon a note about the Real Ale Festival in Chicago, which at one point was claimed to be the largest cask ale tasting event outside of Britain. Who'd have guessed?
No shite? I wonder if Hereford will be represented.
Hm. Ferret Beer? Isn't the picture on the label resprentative of what's in the bottle? Hmm. I will talk to the Spencer's about this.
;D
I think since the Fursty Ferrets are looking at the cask of beer it implies that they are not are not to be bottled with the product, but are in fact “eyeballing” it because they are fursty. On the other hand Coors has a picture of the Rocky Mountains on the label but have been purported (in urban ledged) to have canned the occasional rat in their beer.
I don’t know if any of these ingredients are available to you locally anymore but I think we should make some of these at our next get together:
http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=48193
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