Cask breather or Aspirator
Cask Breather
With beer volumes down over the winter months and the fact you must sell your lower alcohol (3.8%) real ale within three days, two days is better, this can become a struggle with Pubs who are quiet during the week. If you haven’t got one, why not consider using a cask breather or aspirator as they are sometimes called.
If you haven’t heard of them, they have been out for many years and have been tried and tested by the brewers.
What do they do?…….. Answer, they keep your beer fresher for a bit longer (usually a day).
And how do they do that?……..Instead of stale cellar air entering your container as the ale is drawn out, carbon dioxide (Co2) via a spigot in the shive, is replacing the liquid. This also works with upright stillaging using a pipe attached to the vent valve on the body of an ale extractor.
Spigot
How do you get one?…….Ask for one, most of the major Brewers supply them as part of their commitment to provide you with quality cask ale.
(revision : I have been told by one of the Pub Co’s that the 4 major brewers no longer supply such equipment and that only certain regional’s now supply)
However if you wish to remain in CAMRA’s good beer guide this avenue isn’t open to you.
Why ever not?………The argument is that carbon dioxide (fizzyness) is being added to the beer, which shouldn’t be a problem, if set right at a few pounds, normal blanket pressure (secondary fermentation occurs whilst in the cellar, this process makes its own carbon dioxide as it rises through the liquid, Co2 is heavier than air so it forms a blanket over the liquid and this helps to keep it fresh).
As any brewery technician will tell you the gas pressure has to be a lot higher to get absorbed into the beer and over longer period of time. I would like to bet that even a seasoned CAMRA drinker wouldn’t be able to tell the difference and anyway, would probably say it tastes fresher. They have been using one in my local for years and they don’t really need to, but they do, because of that very fact.
CAMRA’s answer would be to sell the beer quicker, but as we know in the real world things aren’t quite so simple.
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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All this Camra stuff gets on my nerves.Surely it doesn’t matter if you use aspirator or not.Provided the beer tastes as it should who gives a bugger.
I care a lot how my beer is kept and dispenced. I also think that if all this Camra stuff gets on your nerves , then you have no knowledge of what Camra have done for the Real Ale industry and in fact, if Camra hadn’t been formed there most probably wouldn’t be a real ale industry and you would be blowing the froth of of a lovely fizzy dead pint of Double Diamond or the like !!
I agree with you both, if something isn’t done soon with the industry as it is there will be no pubs left to sell cask beers. The supermarkets can’t sell draught ales at the moment but it will be only a matter of time, they are already trying it in bottles. There will be some new inovation in the pipline I have no doubt. It is all well and good the micro breweries expanding, but they are subsidised to a certain extent by the bigger brewers with their delivery networks and equipment in place.
We would of course sell our beer much quicker it we could get rid of the tie. In my pub we could sell a pint of any of our beers for about fifty pence less per pint if we were free trade and still make the same profit. Price of 9 gals of adnams from Pubco is 87.50 and from a free trade supplier 69.98
I think frank is not knocking Camra,he seems to be saying they should be more relaxed.Surely provided Real Ale tastes good,looks good and is capable of being served in more outlets that is a good thing.
Traditional methods of serving Cask Ale are great,but we should not have an embargo on new methods of keeping good ale.
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