Firkinfest welcome for guests. Please follow the footsteps to the backyard.

Firkinfest welcome for guests. Please follow the footsteps to the backyard.

Another firkin summerfest is over. After a week of worrying about the weather, it ended up being sunny and hot, with a slight breeze. We had a good turnout this year, about 25 people. Last year’s was more of a neighbourhood gathering, but this year we invited a wide group of friends, many of whom didn’t know each other.  Timbit was well behaved too.

My timing with the church across the street wasn’t great. After a month of no weddings, they had one at 3:30. So when Micha was walking up the street at 4:00, she thought that all the cars on the road were for our party.  It also meant people who drove had a hard time finding parking. And the wedding was followed by 5:00 mass, so I’m sure guests thought they were coming to a HUGE party.

I was right in guessing that Micha would be the first person to show up. She was also one of the last to leave. What a trooper! (I know she’ll read this eventually. She’s the one who set me up with the blog.)  As treat, we started with frozen strawberry daiquiris in the blender. From there, I switched to a real ale.  After all that’s what the firkin fest is all about.

Firkinfest … it’s Rob’s opportunity to show all our friends his beer engine and explain the virtues of real cask-conditioned ale, just like they have in England. A firkin is an imperial measure — one quarter of a hog’s head, or 40.9 litres. We ordered our firkin of Stuart’s Organic beer from Heritage Brewery in Carleton Place. Real ale is naturally carbonated and should be stored between 11.5 and 13 degrees Celsius, that is, cellar temperature. We don’t really have cellars here, but our basement is pretty close to that temperature.

The beer was quite nice, light for a summertime evening. The taste will change over time, and has in fact since we started it on Wednesday. Key point for newbies in the real ale world. Order your beer a few days in advance of your get together.

The beer is drawn out of the firkin through a beer engine. That’s what allows you to “pull your pint.”  Ours is an Angram – half pull, one of the best. The half pull means you get a half pint per full pull. Although CAMRA frowns upon the use of a cask breather, this nifty device allows us to use carbon dioxide to replace oxygen. At 1 psi the CO2 acts as a blanket to displace the vacuum normallly filled by air as the firkin goes down.

Rob could go and on about this. He loved the fact that two engineers and a writer had loads of questions about the beer itself and how the engine works. My sister was the only one who said the beer was too warm. But, if it’s too cold you don’t taste it.

Now the part that grossed out Micha last time, which is why she was drinking daiquiris, wine and sangria, was when Rob talked about the aerobic organisms in the beer which makes it “live”. That just grossed her right out. So a few times this afternoon, I would venture down to the basement past the new real ale students listening to Rob’s lecture. I’d pause, say that I’d heard it many times, pull my pint like a pro and then head back up the stairs.

Not sure how many of our guests will read this (other than Micha), but I do hope they enjoyed themselves. It was great fun, and will likely be followed up by an Oktoberfest celebration in the fall. Wow, I’m so glad that it didn’t rain. Don’t know where I would have put everyone!

Cheers to a firkin good summer!