Woodruff Cask Night @ The Casual Pint

Man what a night at The Casual Pint and also a good rhyme.  I stepped in at around 6:30 and was greeted by a few dozen fans of craft beer enjoying the art that Dave Ohmer of Woodruff Brewing Co. has been hard at work on these past few weeks.  I have said it once and I will say it again, I love these cask beers and the creative flavors that Dave has been experimenting with.  A cask conditioned beer is basically a brew that has been allowed to carbonate itself in either a wood or metal cask.  Click here for a little learnin’ bout dis.  They did not have bottles of CO2 hanging around  to carbonate the beer with back in the day you know.  This brew needs to be poured from a special pump system.  I make it a point to try to get to all of these tasty events just to see what Dave will come up with next. You should as well.

Tonight Dave took Woodruff’s porter and cask aged it with JFG coffee to see what would happen.  Ol’ Dave hand split the coffee beans, threw them in a hop bag along with a handful of Golden hops for a little dry hopcoffeeing.  Very tasty.   Most of the time he has no idea what the beer is going to taste like until it is go time and the first pint is flowing.  You can see the apprehension in his face as the first beer is poured and what a pour this one was.  The color was a nice brown, common for a porter but on top you got this one-inch thick head that remained intact even when it cleared the rim of the glass by 1/2 inch.  You needed a spoon to taste it.  Very nice.  I was surprised at the high amount of hops on the nose and I was getting ready for a very hoppy brown ale instead of a porter which I don’t mind at all since I thoroughly enjoy Terrapin’s Hop Karma Brown IPA.  The hop nose was followed by a nice aroma of freshly ground coffee and the tell-tale scent of roasted malts common for a porter.  First sip and you get a great bitter coffee flavor with a very light hop kick on the back end.  Most of the bitterness is coming from the coffee beans and not the hops.  The best yet is where there is coffee there is also caffeine.  Great brew and a bit of energy to boot equals nice combination.  I did ask if this might make it to a seasonal selection and alas Dave said no but I am betting if you keep hounding him it might make it to a tap at Downtown Grill and Brewery one day.

It was a great night for Dave.  Everyone at The Casual Pint had one of his Coffee Infused Porters in hand and was having a great time.  Double cool that the proceeds went to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Knox-vegas.  If you have not made it to a cask night keep an ear to the ground and your eyes here for the next one.  We will let you know when and where.  If you want to have all you can drink of Woodruff’s brews and others, hit the Winter Fest in Townsend.  For 45 bucks you get brews, a cool T, pint glass and grub from Miss Lily’s Cafe and the proceeds go to help kids.

Stay thirsty my fellow Snobs.