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RE: Beer Review: Uncommon Brewers Siamese Twin Ale, a Dubbel w/Lemongrass+
You can try to look for an Irish or English pub with hand pumps, that will be a guarantee of undercarbonanted or even uncarbonated beer.
Cask conditioned beer is great stuff! It need not be an English or Irish pub though. There's a few breweries and craft beer bars in California (and the US) that serve beer on cask, usually on beer engine but sometimes directly from the firkin. During SF beer week there are at least 2 events that feature only cask conditioned beers. 🍻
As for carbonation level for cask conditioned beers, if it's flat, then beer is not fresh and should be avoided. IMEO, just because flat cask beer happens doesn't make it right. 😉
I am not an expert on California beer scene so I suggested, what would be a natural place to look for uncarbonated beer for me. When it comes to freshness, I think there may be difference between UK and US, In here cask beer poured from pump almost always is totally flat with a big white head and it happens very rarely that it is unfresh, but as I said, there may be differences between countries. Do you have any comparative experience regarding real ale in UK and cask ale in California?
I talked to some brewers about this last night. One brewer specializes in English-style ales. 😀
If a cask beer has a head, it has carbonation. It's just that it's so much lower that a carbonated beer that it seems flat.
Regarding freshness, the recommendation was to go to CAMRA approved pubs.
So it turns out we're on the same page. 😀🍻