Cask beer is a unique format of fresh, live draught beer that, at its best, delivers a taste experience unmatchable in any other way. Rarely found in the beer world at large, cask retains a significant commercial presence only in the UK, where it famously survived efforts by big brewery groups to phase it out in the 1960s and 1970s. Though in its home country it’s once again struggling to retain its profile, many brewers and drinkers remain fascinated with cask.

Cask is beset with myths and misunderstandings, a legacy of its emergence as a cause célèbre at the very birth of the beer consumer movement when technical and historical knowledge of beer and brewing was much sparser than it is today. More recently, it’s been overwhelmed by the sound and fury of the craft beer movement, dismissed by some younger UK enthusiasts as terminally obsolescent ‘boring brown bitter’, and now accounts for under 5% of overall UK beer production.

Des de Moor considers what cask beer really is, what makes it so different and special compared to other formats, and how it evolved historically, not as a living link to ancient brewing traditions, as is often assumed, but as a thoroughly modern product for the industrial age, becoming what was essentially Britain’s lager.

Des de Moor is the author of Cask: The real story of Britain’s unique beer culture, a new and pioneering book providing a comprehensive introduction to the past, present and future of cask to a new generation of drinkers. Based in London UK, Des is also the author of award-winning guidebook London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars, a contributor to BEER magazine and numerous other books, magazines and websites, a busy beer and brewery tour guide and tutored tasting host and a sought-after international beer judge.