How I serve British ale

[sstacey]

I wanted to write a post about how I serve British aka 'real' ale as I haven't seen anyone else do it this way (or maybe I don't read enough posts). I looked at getting an uber-cool beer engine from the UK but eventually decided against it because a lot of beer could potentially be wasted when sitting overnight in the lines, plus the 1/4 or 1/2 pint that sits inside the engine. Great for a party but no so great for every day if half of the first pint is stale beer.

The other accepted way of serving real ale is gravity fed and I think this often works better for home brewers. So I searched gumtree until I found an old stainless pin for sale. Luckily it had an offset threaded hole at the top, which I fitted a keg tap to with fittings from Keg King. I already had a spare keg tap. If it didn't have the hole I would have had a port welded in.

I found that the cask shive hole size was non standard and couldn't get the right size to fit. However, I already had some silicone bungs that did fit ok. I looked at getting a cask breather but they apparently don't work well for gravity feed (not enough vacuum created) so instead I got a breather spile and fitted a john guest tap to it. I can connect CO2 just to replace gas volume/ remove the vacuum through this as needed. It is not force carbonated - that would blow the bung. Also during natural carbonation I tape the bung just in case it wants to blow (found this out the first time. It was in our family room and went off one night). Don't need to tape while serving because the pressure is so low.

I keep the cask in a temp controlled fridge and it makes for a great way to serve British ales.

 

[MartinOC]

Great solution to the age-old problem of "I don't drink enough"...

I've done a similar fix in the past using 45L Post-mix kegs laid on their side ('can't find my previous posts on this one), but this is elegant.

Where did you get the breather spile from?

 

[sstacey]

The spile was from Brewman in Newcastle. Steve was excellent to deal with and also tried to find shives to fit the non-standard hole. Eventually I remembered I had the bungs and thought I'd try that first.