I was Right about Cask Ale, Surprisingly

Stoops friend Charlie McVeigh tried to warn me. He does that a lot. “Young people don’t drink cask ale. Christ! Old people barely drink it. So if you must have it on the bar - when most London pubs are taking it out - just put in one ‘hand-pump’!”

Slow down! I am certain that many of you don’t even know what cask ale is! It's very important to me that you do, as it is at the heart of the whole Stoops project.

Permit me to explain. 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 Denis - our bar manager at the Stoops - or one of his able assistants 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 - London Black.

Moreover - yes there is more! - the stuff is actually pro-biotic - it is alive. Yes, readers, it may even be good for your gut. The downside of the whole thing is that once a barrel is ‘tapped’ it has to be drunk within 72 hours, preferably 48. After that it starts to turn to vinegar. The reason so many people think they hate cask ale is because they go to a pub which doesn’t look after it and end up drinking something sour and vile.

When we opened the Blue Stoops, I was keen for it to be a proper pub, serving great frothing pints of delicious, fresh, beautifully kept cask ale. And I wanted to serve all of our Allsopp's ales at the same time, and of course other brewers’ beers. Charlie’s point was that we would never sell enough to stop the beer going off, so we should have one or two hand-pumps. NOT, the four that I eventually put in.

In an unexpected, unprecedented and spectacularly wonderful outcome, I was right. And Charlie was wrong. By putting four magnificent hand-pulls in the centre of the bar, illuminating them and - frankly - banging on about it to customers - we have not thrown away a single pint of beer. We have proved that you can have a pub in London, frequented by the young, which can sell firkin after firkin of cask ale.

What's more, I firmly believe that in so doing we are increasing the net total of human happiness. Even more important, though, by drinking cask and spreading the good news about it, you are also saving the pub. I don't mean saving the Stoops, which is fine thank you very much thanks to all those you new cask ale converts. I mean those pubs which are thinking of removing it from the bar because they are caught in a doom loop of declining demand leading to bad beer leading to further declines in demand. Eventually leading to Landlords thinking this is all just too much trouble. Because when cask ale disappears from a pub bar, it somehow ceases to be a pub, and before long you see chip board being nailed up in front of the windows.

So save the pub! Drink delicious frothing pints of Allsopp's, the wonderful ale of old England! And if you happen to have a little fun along the way, where's the harm in that?

_{Jamie Allsopp, Proprietor}

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