"Real Ale" viability

[badmajon]

I would love be able to make "real ale" like I had in the UK, but I noticed that to do it properly, you don't hook the thing up to a CO2 system.

What keeps the ale carbonated after you've tapped it? Also, since I supposed you'd be putting air into the keg, do you have to drink it all at once (like a bottle of soda) before it goes flat and/or develops off flavors?

Thanks

 

[Cranny04]

I would love be able to make "real ale" like I had in the UK, but I noticed that to do it properly, you don't hook the thing up to a CO2 system.

What keeps the ale carbonated after you've tapped it? Also, since I supposed you'd be putting air into the keg, do you have to drink it all at once (like a bottle of soda) before it goes flat and/or develops off flavors?

Thanks

Real ale is served from a cask.. The excess co2 is slowly released with the use of different spiles.. This also lets Oxygen in ..

They do make aspirator valves that will let you supply the cask with a trickle of co2

Thus making cask ale more viable

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I've had mild served on nitro like Guiness. It wasn't quite the same as being served out of the hand pump/beer engine but it was in the ball park. Still prefer it to be served out of the beer engine though.

 

[badmajon]

Real ale is served from a cask.. The excess co2 is slowly released with the use of different spiles.. This also lets Oxygen in ..

They do make aspirator valves that will let you supply the cask with a trickle of co2

Thus making cask ale more viable

so... yes, you need to drink it all relatively quickly? is it still fermenting (and producing Co2 to keep pressure) while you are drinking it?

 

[badmajon]

I did more research on this topic. Does anyone see a problem with brewing 5 gallons of beer, racking it into a corny and purging the o2, and then drawing out a gallon at a time to put into a 1 gal polypin where it would be primed and served from? Would that be a workable, authentically real ale experience (in terms of CAMRA standards and taste)?

 

[markcurling]

I did more research on this topic. Does anyone see a problem with brewing 5 gallons of beer, racking it into a corny and purging the o2, and then drawing out a gallon at a time to put into a 1 gal polypin where it would be primed and served from? Would that be a workable, authentically real ale experience (in terms of CAMRA standards and taste)?

I fear purging and dispensing from the keg would break the rules! Technically any use of external CO2 is not 'real' ale. I think there's a grey area over using a pillow of CO2 (created naturally by the beer) to prevent the cask oxidising. So... perhaps you could cut a few inches of pipe coming out of the gas in post, tape a large airtight sack over it (which will fill with CO2 as the beer primes), then gravity dispense with a tap from the gas out below the bottom of the keg. You would need fat dispense line to prevent resistance to the gravity dispense!

All in all not worth it when you could just hook up to <5 PSI...

 

[markcurling]

...and yes, a cask should be drunk within a day or two of being tapped