Laxton Hollow Brewing Works

05/10/2022

A great recent article on cask ale (including a nice mention).

Cask ale is naturally made beer; minus preservatives or chemical intervention, this twice-fermented ale is served as a live beer directly from the cask.

03/16/2022

Laxton Hollow Dry Irish Cask Stout is on this week!

11/03/2021

What sorcery is this?

Laxton Hollow's in-season seasonal, Autumn Ale, is currently on tap. Medium-bodied with a light bitterness, this session ale features rye crystal malt and a subtle helping of dark amber maple syrup. Magnum, Liberty and Willamette hops provide a traditional hop profile.

12/21/2020

On this first day of winter, come and enjoy our Winter Ale, made with a touch of orange blossom honey and sweet orange peels.

09/03/2020

Laxton Hollow’s unique Autumn Ale is back starting Saturday! Medium-bodied and semi-sweet with a dark red color and a light bitterness, this seasonal ale features rye crystal malt and a hint of maple syrup. Magnum, Liberty and Willamette hops provide a traditional hop profile. Come by and try a pint while supplies last!

05/28/2020

As things inch back toward normalcy, we are slowly getting casks on service as demand permits. Today we’re launching this year’s Dry Irish Stout!

01/25/2020

Don't miss Burns Night tonight and Laxton Hollow's 80 Shilling Ale.

10/19/2019

Pour One Nine at Kingwood Center.

09/18/2019

Laxton Hollow’s unique Autumn Ale is medium-bodied and semi-sweet with a dark red color and a light bitterness. This seasonal ale features rye crystal malt and a subtle hint of maple syrup. Magnum, Liberty and Willamette hops provide a traditional hop profile. Come by and try a pint while supplies last!

08/13/2019

05/15/2019

What is Floor Malting?

Hops easily get the most attention of anything in beer, but they comprise only a very small portion of its ingredients. In our recipe for Lord Badger Bitter, for instance, 83.5% is water, 16.2% is malted barley and a mere 0.3% is hops. The barley used, and how it was prepared for brewing, has a tremendous impact on the flavor of a beer. So what exactly is malted barley?

The natural sugars in barley need to be extracted to make beer, but in order for this to happen, the grain must first be malted. The malting process steeps the grain in oxygenated water in order to induce germination, then it continues the germination process until it is fully dried out. Traditionally, most of the process is done by spreading the grain out on stone floors then periodically shoveling and raking it so it dries evenly (the modern method uses large stainless cylinders with mechanical agitators). After four to six days on the floor, the grain is kilned in order to toast or roast it to the desired color necessary to produce a specific type of brewing grain.

Floor-malted barley makes up a small percent of all malt used by the craft brew industry, but traditional cask ales are almost exclusively made with it. English floor maltsters, such a Thomas Fawcett in Yorkshire, have been owned and operated by the same families for centuries. Their costly and labor-intensive craft, along with their unwavering commitment to tradition, yields malts with rich, aromatic flavors that cannot be attained through modern industrial processes. Want to taste it? Laxton Hollow's cask-conditioned ales are made with floor-malted barley produced by the Fawcett, Bairds, Crisp and Simpsons maltsters in the UK.

05/14/2019

What's a Beer Engine?

When we think of beer 300 years ago, we tend to imagine large wooden barrels sitting on or behind a bar and a tavern keeper filling flagons directly from wooden taps. Room temperature beer? Yuck. But the truth is a little different. Ale then, as it is now, was usually stored in cool cellars and retrieved by a runner who spent the workday rushing up and down stairs to fill orders. By the end of the 19th Century, this practice was superseded by special beer pumps mounted to walls or bartops called beer engines.

Today's traditional cask ale is still stored and served at a cellar temperature of 11 to 13 degrees Celsius (52 to 55 degrees Farenheit). In Britain, Cask Marque (the cask ale quality assurance program) conducts unanounced inspections during which the temperature of a pint of beer is measured to ensure it's within this narrow range. Beer engines make this possible.

Because no pressurized CO2 or nitrogen is used to dispense the beer, a piston pump within the engine allows the server to draw beer from a cask in a cellar or cooler by pusing and pulling the porcelain handle. The velocity of the beer hitting the bottom of the glass helps break out natural carbonation and provides the unique mouthfeel of authentic cask conditioned ale.

To this day, beer engines are the heart of nearly every British pub. Come see beer engines in action and try authentic cask conditioned ale at Laxton Hollow in Lexington, Ohio!