The Small Miracle of £4 Pints of Ale
Long-time readers of these dialectics will recall that dear friend to the pub Charlie McVeigh was once sceptical about my ‘all-in’ approach to cask ale at The Blue Stoops. I wrote at length about that pre-launch debate here.
In essence, his worry was that cask ale only remains fresh for 2-3 days once a barrel is ‘tapped’ in the cellar. Having four hand-pumps, each connected to a 72-pint firkin of ale, meant that in a lager-dominated age we’d be throwing our fine ale away as it went off. Thank the Lord he was wrong, The Blue Stoops has become something of a beacon for cask ale drinkers, and has also ‘turned’ a fair few girls and boys onto the true path of pro-biotic, fresh ale righteousness.
I knew it was going to be all right when, a few days after opening, a supremely poised and elegant woman sat down on her own in our bar at lunchtime and demolished a frothing pint of Allsopp’s India Pale Ale with a dozen Carlingford oysters, a barely perceptible look of ecstasy flashing across her features intermittently.
All of that said, even I have mild concerns regarding maintaining volume through four lines of cask ale in August, when many of you will be sweating it out in 40-degree heat on some distant Riviera, far from the air-conditioned luxury of The Blue Stoops.
I therefore unveil ‘Taproom Prices’, our dog-days promotion which offers all hand-pumped ales at just £4/pint for the month of August. No voucher or QR code needed. Just approach the bar and order a pint from one of our four hand-pumps and you will be charged £4. How is this possible? How can we ignore the punishing economics of London pub management and offer beer at such a ridiculously low price on a corner in W8? Well, the Blue Stoops is Allsopp’s taproom, and we brew the beer ourselves, so we start at a lower cost-base but also hope that keeping the beer fresh and flowing freely will save us from the risk of throwing any of it away.
By way of further encouragement, I am hosting a cask ale tasting on 20 August from 6-7pm in the bar. Tasting samples will be free of charge and I do hope you will join me in the sinking of a few pints of this finest and healthiest of drinks.
Cask Ale: An Explainer
Cask Ale is one of old England’s great treasures, endemic and unique to these islands. This is a historic and naturally fermented beer which is hand-pumped from a beer cellar, using those antediluvian handles you see sticking up on pub bars. This beer pumping system was actually invented by a Dutchman, Jan Lofting, in London in 1688 and is known as a beer engine. The pumping of ale from cellar to glass by actually aerates and enlivens the beer. This process is an essential part of what makes it so unique and delicious.
Cask ale may only be correctly drunk in a pub which takes the 'keeping' of it seriously. It is very different from plug-and-play keg beers like lager. Cask ale is an artisanal drink which needs care and attention in the cellar to be truly great. At its best it's effervescent and frothy, not fizzy. Better than the best continental lager. Better than Guinness. Better even than the stout we sell at Stoops – Murphy’s Draught Irish Stout (the pride of Cork city).