Real Ale

[giantmetfan]

Was watching the short series Sons of Liberty and they spent a lot of time in the bar with oak barrels that have beer in them. So I started researching about real ales. Thinking about doing my own want to know opinions and more about what other people have done what type of beer did you do this with and just general information!

 

[dyqik]

Firstly, real ale doesn't normally involve wooden barrels. Even in the olden days, the wooden barrels would normally have been lined, and the beer mostly wouldn't have come into contact with the wood. Almost all real ale is now packaged in stainless or plastic casks.

Real ale is just beer that is naturally conditioned in the cask, and is served without any additional CO2, and not served too cold. Air is admitted into the cask to replace the beer as it is drawn off, oxidising the beer over a couple of days. Frankly, you should either ignore that second part, and use a cask breather (very low pressure CO2 regulator, an LPG regulator is a cheap option), or use a collapsible cubitainer/polypin for serving so that you don't let oxygen destroy your beer within four days or so of tapping the cask.

Basically just rack your beer to the cask/cubitainer, prime with a small amount of sugar for 1.2-1.5 vols CO2 and condition at 55-60F for a week before serving at around 55F. If you want, allow about a pint of air into the container after serving the first few pints to get some light oxidation character, then after that keep the container sealed or use the cask breather. Or if you can get through the cask in three days or less, just let air in to make up the volume.

Cheapest option for a cask/container is a cubitainer, available in various sizes from US plastics etc. I use a 20l Speidel fermentor as cask with a second spigot on top to attach the cask breather to. You can also serve from a corny keg turned upside down/on its side and with the gas and liquid diptubes swapped. Or you can go the full hogshead ( as it were ) and buy a pin or firkin cask.

I'm lucky in that my basement seems to maintain about 55F. Perfect cellaring temperature. I've just racked a mild (from Jamil's BCS recipe, using 1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast) to the cask today.

 

[unionrdr]

CAMRA also says "real ale" doesn't have hops in it. If it does, they call it beer. It was usually fermented 4 days, maybe five in olden days, then put in the cask to finish.

 

[dyqik]

CAMRA also says "real ale" doesn't have hops in it. If it does, they call it beer. It was usually fermented 4 days, maybe five in olden days, then put in the cask to finish.

Erm, you've really got the wrong end of the stick somewhere there. CAMRA's definition of real ale most definitely has hops in it, including dry hops. Most real ales are English bitters or similar. Ale, real or otherwise, is beer.

 

[unionrdr]

Idk if I saved it, but I read something once where they were talking about ales in medieval times. That's what I was referring to. The original stuff. Been spending a lot of time on book research, not to mention the kottbusser thread. It ain't easy digging up info about a beer that's at least 515 years old!...

 

[paperairplane]

Yes but revolutionaries would not have had access to much hops. Especially during a MA winter.

Sweet, warm, flat beer in a wooden barrel. Sounds great. Now excuse me while I go pout a nice dry, cold, carbed, hoppy IPA from my keezer.

Back on topic, you can use a corny as a cask. Carb with a low volume of sugar. when ready, lay it on it's side and hook your liquid line to the gas line and pour away. When it doesn't want to pour, let some air into your "cask" and continue. Voila. (Yes this will oxidize your beer, but it is "real") Or build a hand pump setup with a sparkler.

 

[dyqik]

Don't use a sparkler! English beers should not be served with a sparkler, and it removes a lot of the hop flavour. Sparklers were introduced in the 70s dark ages for English beer to make it look like foreign beers in the movies

At least, that's my opinion. And one shared by a lot of CAMRA members.

 

[Kiichi]

I am gonna recommend watching this. I think it does a good job of explaining why real ale can be great if done properly or darn bad if not brewed right or looked after properly. I recon that will answer some of the things rather well. http://youtu.be/DuWQMUecYBM

 

[hunter_le five]

Idk if I saved it, but I read something once where they were talking about ales in medieval times. That's what I was referring to. The original stuff. Been spending a lot of time on book research, not to mention the kottbusser thread. It ain't easy digging up info about a beer that's at least 515 years old!...

That's certainly true regarding early medieval ales, but has little bearing on CAMRA's definition of "real ale".

 

[unionrdr]

They were the ones that said it. I just have to find it again. Sheez... IDGARA myself, but the diff seems to mean something to CAMRA, at one point anyway.

 

[beergolf]

Wow, how do you come up with this stuff?

CAMRA also says "real ale" doesn't have hops in it. If it does, they call it beer. It was usually fermented 4 days, maybe five in olden days, then put in the cask to finish.
__________________

Just take a minute and look up the real ale definition.

http://www.camra.org.uk/about-real-ale

 

[unionrdr]

That one is a brief generalization & I know the difference between ales & lagers it discusses. I see a lot of videos & read a lot of stuff I stumble onto & don't always save. The fact that I can't always prove it doesn't make me senile or a delusional liar. Now I gotta look for it again...
** OK, found it in wiki. go down to paragraph marked 1400-1699: Rise of hopped beer,paragraph 3.

 

[beergolf]

Your statement was about CAMRA and not beers from 500-700 years ago.

What is CAMRA?

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale is an independent, voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights.

​CAMRA was formed in March 1971 by four men from the north-west who were disillusioned by the domination of the UK beer market by a handful of companies pushing products of low flavour and overall quality onto the consumer.

 

[unionrdr]

Picky picky. They might of said it at one point, in all the reading I do. Maybe miss-remembered. Nothing to get all worked up about I don't really care about splitting hairs myself. But to an Englishman, there's a difference that goes back several centuries. This is what CAMRA basically deliniates. If I find it again under CAMRA-related stuff, I'll post it. Real ale traditions are that old in the UK & ale started as unhopped & kegged at 5 days old to finish. If it had hops, it was considered beer. Period. That's the way it is & started.

 

[Gavin C]

They were the ones that said it. I just have to find it again. Sheez... IDGARA myself, but the diff seems to mean something to CAMRA, at one point anyway.

It might be best not to add misleading info to a thread if it is on a topic that you by your own admission don't care about. "IGDARA", had to look that one up. I'm not trying to be adversarial here. It's just that I feel it does a disservice to the OP and the thread.

 

[unionrdr]

I was merely making a clarification about what the wiki said "real ale" is/was. Thought it was camra, tried to e-mail them. Darn yahoo won't recognize any address. It's not a disservice to state what was/is/used to be. I don't care what it was, but I like what it is, as that's what I/we brew. Interesting to note that ale & beer were indeed separate things at one point. If I get e-mail to work with UK addy's I'll ask again.

 

[hunter_le five]

Here you go, straight from the horse's mouth:

http://www.camra.org.uk/about-real-ale
http://www.camra.org.uk/how-it-s-made
http://www.camra.org.uk/different-styles

There's no need to get defensive about it. You got confused between medieval ale versus CAMRA's "real ale". Easy mistake to make. We can move on now.

 

[unionrdr]

While I was reading those before, from your other link, I seem to remember it was a particular Michael Jackson video where he mentioned it. anyway, I do find it interesting that they got away from wooden casks to metal or other neutral material for the cask maturing part of the process. At least when those of us that bottle do the secondary in the bottles, they consider it real ale. Although, one time I used the lower Vco2 in a beer I made to carb to style, the calculator's range seemed more akin to casked ale, rather than bottled ales.1.3 to like 1.8 even seemed a bot low to me.

 

[DaNewf]

According to CAMRA bottle conditioned beer is also "REAL ALE". Apparently I've been making real ale and nothing else since I started homebrewing.

 

[Hanglow]

"Real Ale" is just a marketing term dreamed up in the 70s when CAMRA was set up to help combat the horrendous beers being produced at the time, as the only good beers in the UK then were served from cask. Every keg beer was supposedly crap. Thankfully they've been very successful which helped the british micros grow during the 70s to the present day and most sell cask beer.

Now they have to change a bit as clearly keg does not now equal bad as there are so many excellent keg beers. But they should still promote cask and try and educate people how to keep and serve it properly as that is both its strength and weakness

They probably should have ignored adding bottled conditioned beer to their definition as it just muddies the waters a bit