While I’m excitable enough to follow every construction update on the blog, most folks don’t need to read about every new tankard and knob that makes its way into Mad Fox Brewing Company in Falls Church, the upcoming brewpub by Bill Madden of Vintage 50. But their most recent post stopped me in my tracks (emphasis added):

We have on order six water jacketed English-made Angram hand-pumps designed into the backbar mill work for a beautiful display and have searched for the right size refrigerated cabinets so we can have the firkins on display. We have 50 firkins on order as well to ensure that we can keep a good reserve and maybe while away some gems for future vintage tappenings.

Angram is a brand of handpump, and I haven’t the foggiest what “water jacketed” means. But six handpumps means…six casks on tap! Six! Churchkey has five, and that’s absurd on its own — I believe there’s only five total in the rest of the District (between Pizzeria Paradiso, CommonWealth, and RFD). All of which plays perfectly into the paws of Bill Madden, who is deft with English brewing traditions. From the projected beer list on the Mad Fox site, he might bring with him old favorites like the Head Knocker, his golden, honeyish English barleywine.

Then there’s the second bit of info: the 50 firkins. Firkins are the physical cask containers, the kegs that look like oversized beer cans. As Madden writes, having that many around means they can always have some properly conditioned casks on deck, which means all six taps should be firing round the clock, and the ability to stash some away for aging. Just something to look forward to for when all this snow clears in, oh, three months.