“St Cask of the Desert”
One of our local brewers, St Mars of the Desert – often referred to as SMOD – recently brewed their first cask beer in a collaboration at Thornbridge brewing. It was on hand pull at the marquee at Steel City 49 where it was the first cask beer to sell out, on the first day of the festival.
Martha & Dann spent a day brewing with Alice at Thornbridge in September, resulting in Quill – a 5.5% ESB. It’s their first fully casked beer, although they also own several German Stichfass which they use throughout the year. They brought two of these to Steel City, both containing ‘ungespundetes’ (a German practice of fermenting in an un-bunged barrel) versions of Fledermaus, their 5.4% vollbier lager. They offer single-stichfass batches at their taproom fairly regularly during the year and always advertise these on their social media.
At the end of October SMOD had a single cask of Quill, offering hand pulled cask ale at their taproom for the first time – and hopefully not the last! Several of our members enjoyed more than one glass of Quill to help encourage this sort of thing.
In early November SMOD also released Bébé Sauvage, a 9.5% bottle refermented foeder beer with plums and dates.