“Chilled any further, nuances on the palate are lost,” said Hall. “Cask beer is ideally served at that temperature, so the joint issue of this and the gentle carbonation from the secondary fermentation in the cask are jointly vital for the full flavor spectrum to be enjoyed.”
The common fallacy, Hall concluded, that cask beer is “warm and flat” must not be continued.
“Any beer that is truly warm and flat would be undrinkable,” says Hall. “Cask beer in good condition with a gentle, naturally produced carbonation is many miles away from that description.”
Critical Yet Understated
When drinking a beer we focus on the malts, the hops, the yeast strain—all vitally important—and so long as the beer is not overly carbonated or woefully flat, it will not get noticed. That’s a good thing for the brewers who want drinkers to focus on the ingredients and not just the science behind things.
Carbonation is a critical part of beer. Even before a drinker takes that first satisfying swallow, they see the beer itself. A proper thick head atop a beer and those rising CO2 bubbles facilitate the anticipation. No matter how they arrived into the beer, be in natural carbonation or forcing a gas into a liquid, it would be nearly impossible these days to imagine a beer being sold without it.
“Bubbles in general are just fascinating,” said Mosher.
