My precious, soon it will be mine. This is an Angram beer engine. According to CAMRA, this is the only way to serve real ale, besides pouring it straight from the cask. Rather than the beer being forced out of the keg with CO2, the beer engine is a standard pump which pulls it from the cask. The links above explain why not using CO2 is necessary for serving real ale.
Real ale served out of a cask is by far my favorite. This may be colored slightly by my visit to England in 2002, but I don't think my memory of it has been enhanced by nostalgia for the trip. I've had decent real ale here in the states, but it isn't always cared for properly. It takes quite a bit of skill and experience to store and serve it and outside of England, it's probably difficult to find the appropriate training. Especially so, given its limited appeal in the States. Case in point, I got a pint of Old Thumper cask ale at the Strange Brew tavern last night and it had turned into malt vinegar. The cask had not been drunk fast enough and so acetobacter had time to take hold. That can't be good for promoting the joys of real ale.
Real ale is a bit warmer and less carbonated than what we're used to, but that is what makes it so flavorful. Your tongue isn't assaulted by fizziness and ice cold temperatures. All that's left is the beer. When it's served from the beer engine or any other draught system in England, law states that the glass must be filled to the very top. To do this requires several pulls of the handle, and to do it in a reasonable amount of time, much of the resulting foam is forced out by continuing to fill the glass to overflowing. The result is creamy foam cascading down the side of the glass, making the sides delightfully sticky. It takes a bit longer, and at the end of the day a lot of beer is wasted, but it's worth it.
So anyway, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered one of these bad boys with which to serve my homebrew. Since my trip to England, I've been trying to recreate some of the beers I've had there with varying success. Admittedly this device won't necessarily help me with that, but at least I can have a decent real ale anytime I want.
1 comment:
Hope your Angram makes you as happy as mine has. When my favorite local place serves cask ale, it's from a firkin vented to atmosphere, so the longevity factor had been a concern. I got a cask breather valve from UKBrewing which replenishes the keg with CO2 as ale is drawn without puttting pressure on the keg (and inducing CO2 to go into solution by accident). This works great, although after two months, the modest remains of my IPA had lost that freshness associated with cask ale. I figure as long as you don't plan on taking more than a month a keg, it'll always be great.
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