The 200-year-old building that houses North Country Brewing in Slippery Rock, Butler County, once sold caskets.

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If you go ...

There's sure to be a cask or three at the 11th MicroBrewers' Fest at Penn Brewery on the North Side June 4. Tickets are $32 for each of three tasting sessions with nearly 30 brewers (www.pennbrew.com or 412-237-9400).

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Ryan West, bar manager at North Country Brewing Co. in Slippery Rock, hand pumps a cask-conditioned beer. Click photo for larger image.

Now it serves cask.

Cask-conditioned ale, that is.

And this brew is alive.

That is, the yeast is active -- fermenting -- in the cask.

These days, such old-school brew actually is in small stainless steel kegs. But unlike most normal draft, this "real beer," as the Brits call it, isn't filtered or pasteurized. Also, it isn't dispensed by pressurized carbon dioxide or other gas, but rather, is pumped out, by hand, using a "beer engine."

The beer hits the glass with all-natural fizzies that are fewer and finer than regular draft. And, because the live yeast still is fermenting, "conditioning" the brew, cask is served less cold -- typically, at "cellar" temperature of around 55 to 60 degrees.

"We love it because it's the old traditional way of serving beer," says co-owner Bob McCafferty. His beautiful brewpub, which opened this February, always has one cask-conditioned offering in addition to a dozen other brews, and he plans to buy a second beer engine -- maybe even some wood kegs for cask.

Because the emptying keg fills with air, rather than more stable CO2, cask brew changes over time and doesn't keep as long -- up to several days. But that's not been a problem here, McCafferty says. "We blow through it pretty fast."

	Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Embalmer is a cask-conditioned brew -- it's a 9-percent alcohol barley-wine -- sold at North Country Brewing Co. Click photo for larger image.

Cask-conditioned brew is a rare treat for craft brew lovers. But you can find quite a bit of it around this region, and at some unlikely places.

Several brewpubs pump cask, including the Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville, John Harvard's Brew House, and Rock Bottom Brewery in Homestead. Rock Bottom brewer Matt Carroll sometimes places a keg on the bar and lets gravity pour it.

Brewers will tell you that in addition to the differences due to carbonation and serving temperature, a cask-conditioned brew will taste different from the same regularly made recipe.

"It arouses a totally different flavor profile," says John Harvard's Andrew Maxwell.

That, and the smaller batch sizes, allow brewers to be extra creative -- adding hops, say, directly to the keg. The Church Brew Works' Bryan Pearson will add different hops to make subtle variations of the same beer, and sometimes even adds bourbon-infused oak.

At North Country, brewer Sean McIntyre added local maple syrup to a Scotch ale with potent results. He's tucking away casks to not be tapped for two or three years, including his 9-percent alcohol barleywine, "Embalmer."

Says McCafferty: "Cask conditioning gives you the liberty to try something weird and see what people think."

Beer geeks, especially ones who've been to Britain, flock around beer engines. But the general public has questions about cask-conditioned ale.

"People really don't understand what it is," Maxwell says. "The general perception is that it's warm beer. It's not warm beer."

You can ask questions -- and ask for a taste -- at any place where cask is sold, which includes several area beer bars.

The Sharp Edge Beer Emporium in East Liberty, which has been serving cask for nearly decade now, taps two at 6 p.m. every Wednesday. The Sharp Edge Creekhouse in Crafton keeps on one cask. The brews come from as far away as Oregon (Rogue) to just across town (East End Brewing Co.).

Out in Bridgewater, Beaver County, the Copper Dog puts a cask on for special occasions.

Other outlets also serve cask brews from breweries such as Troegs, Victory and Yards from Eastern Pennsylvania, where cask is more prevalent. In fact, at Philadelphia's Grey Lodge Pub, tomorrow is "Friday the Firkinteenth," a semi-regular celebration of beer in "firkins," as the Brits call true beer casks.

In the U.S., "There are only a few breweries that seem to be doing it," says Glen Benigni. (For state-by-state lists of places serving cask, check out this Brit-maintained Web site: www.cask-ale.co.uk/us/statemenu.html. And look what state supposedly has the most known outlets.)

Benigni owns Fat Head's on South Side, which always has cask on. He tells the uninitiated that it's like sushi: "You gotta try it."