Cask ale is dangerous stuff indeed

I don't mean that it is dangerous to sit there and drink it all day, though that is also true.
On Saturday night I met up with The Beer Nut and some other ICB members for some drinks at the Bull and Castle. I was informed by the manager Geoff that prior to my arrival, a load of English CAMRA members had been in and drunk the whole cask of O'Haras stout. Ah well I thought, there is plenty of other beer to chose from including the wonderful O'Haras red on tap. I had never had this on tap and I think it is actually better than the bottle, though I need to do a side by side to tell for sure.

Anyway after a great night and a nice rest, though still up at 9am feeling a little dehydrated but otherwise perfectly fine myself and my wife went back in to Dublin. I had planned on continuing my pub crawl and reviewing Dublin pubs for a future book I am doing with the help of VelkyAl who has done one on Prague but I simply could not be bothered this afternoon once I got to Pravda to find it now closes Sunday through Tuesday. So I went to the Porterhouse to get some more pictures as I had lost the ones I had taken before. After a pint of TSB on cask I went back to The Bull & Castle for lunch and then to watch the Ireland V Australia Rugby match. Geoff said there is still no cask on, to which I booed. While waiting for my food Geoff came back over and got me to come up to take a look at the cask. The bad quality Iphone picture you see above is what I saw. He had tapped a Goods Store IPA cask at 6pm last night and it was still gushing out of the top due to the fact it is dry hopped so the pressure inside is immense. He had it covered with a towel but when he lifted the towel there was a gush of beer out of the top which would probably hit the ceiling if not for the towel. There have been previous incidents with gushing casks.

So for those who are impatient when you get to the Bull and Castle and find there is no cask, just remember poor Geoff who takes his life in his hands every time he taps a cask. He could lose an eye with the pressure the beer can shoot out at.