Firkin Frenzy

Notes from Steve Marsh – Firkin Meister at “Heavy Seas”

On the return of empty Firkins to the brewery –“The delivery truck pulls up. I immediately break out into a country rendition ‘Where has my baby been, please let me hold you…clean you… fill you …because soon you will be gone.’  I would put little music notes where the quotes are, if I could really actually sing.

So what’s it all about? Let’s start with the basics.

A firkin is a  9 gallon cask.  That is an English nine.  In the US, it’s 10.8 gallons and is probably the most common size used for cask conditioned beer.  Real Ale is what’s inside the firkin and describes  the unfiltered beer brewed from traditional ingredients and naturally “conditioned” (or carbonated) in either a bottle or a cask.  It is dispensed and served without use of extraneous C02. 

When enough casks accumulate they are cleaned by hand in a hot caustic bath to remove any residue, followed by a thorough rinse and shine. They are then sanitized (plugged up and filled with 70 C water for 20 plus minutes), while the filling equipment is sterilized.  The cask has two openings – one on the head for tapping and pouring, plus one on the side for filling.  A keystone, or bung, is then driven into the tapping opening in the head of the cask, sealing that opening.  Each cask is then purged with CO2, filled from the bottom up with your favorite Heavy Seas beer, and finally given a dosage of active yeast from a recently brewed beer  - “krauesened” – which will induce a secondary fermentation in the cask for natural carbonation.  This creates  just enough bubbles to give you a nice lacey head as the beer pours into your glass.

The cask is then sealed with another kind of bung, which closes the filling hole, and totally seals the cask so the beer can come into condition.  Sometimes we add additional hops or special ingredients to our casks.  If we do they are added in cheesecloth bags that are hung from the filling bung before the cask is sealed. 

To serve, the cask is allowed to rest on its side for several days to naturally clarify. A tap is then literally driven though the center of the keystone, and a hole is poked through the filling bung to release pressure and allow air to enter the vessel.  The beer can then be dispensed through either a gravity pour faucet or preferably a “beer engine.” 

One of my favorite beers to cask has been our Peg Leg Imperial Stout and I save my best recipes for special events like our upcoming Beer and Bacon Festival here at the brewery on Sept  19.  In the past I have infused Indian monsoon coffee, a light coffee bean dried by the monsoon winds, topped with hops and French oak chips.  This experiment has developed into French oak chips randomly placed in some of our other extrAARGHinary Heavy Seas beers, including Loose Cannon, Big DIPA and Prosit! (a soon to be released,  fantastic Oktoberfest in Cask and 22 oz bottle). 

Creating firkins for Heavy Seas is a labor of love and something that I hope you’ll fall in love with too. Watch our calendar of events on the website for a firkin coming soon to a pub near you!