Just a few important tips on real ale.
You'll be receiving firkins or kilderkins (9 galls or 18 ) from your brewery supplier which are sealed by a wooden or plastic 'shive' or 'bung', with a coloured plastic 'tut' in its centre and a wooden or plastic 'Keystone' into which you will be inserting a plastic or wooden tap , using a mallet.
The beer inside will normally have been primed by the brewer with a handful of aromatic hops and a little sugar solution which keeps the fermentation alive, scented, and builds up a small CO2 gas pressure within the cask.
As a 'cellar man', your role will be to keep your beer, as far as it is possible, away from the outside air for as long as it is being dispensed in the bar.
To enable you to do this, you will have two types of wooden 'spiles' (or pegs) A hard spile and a soft spile. The hard spile, when in place, will allow no gas to escape from your firkin (useful when first tapping a cask), nor will it allow any air to enter the cask and is essential to seal off the beer from the air in between service sessions.
The soft spile is made of bamboo, is porous, and will allow gas to be released in secondary fermentation but will maintain a small pressure within the cask to remain and, at the same time, keep the beer free from the ingress of air. It can be allowed to remain in place during service but is better left loosened if only to stop spiders getting in !
5 Important underlying training notes :
- Fermentation, amongst other things, causes the gas CO2 to be produced which essentially should be released at the point of service. This is described as 'condition' and results in that sublime 'head' which should adhere to the side of the customers clean glass. It also has an ability, with its alcoholic content, to open the throat muscles of the happy beer drinker thus enhancing both the taste (bitterness), the clarity and 'nose' (aromatic hops). Happy times !
- 'Kegged' beer is viewed to be different to "real ale" in that at the brewery the same beer, though now completely 'flat', is cooled, kegged or bottled under external CO2 pressure. Of course, this enables the beer to be kept indefinitely. But the nature of this external pressurisation completely changes the feel to mouth and throat and to the taste. Hence the arrival of CAMRA. The campaign for real ale. This organisation is uniquely responsible for the protection of "real ale" and the good beer now served throughout the UK.
- The other essential piece of knowledge is that CO2 gas dissolves in the liquid beer more easily the colder the liquid (beer) is. This is why the cellar temperature should be within the range of 10 and 14 degrees C. ie the cooler the temperature of the beer, the more CO2 dissolves and is held within it - until it splashes into the glass.
NOTE: This is why it is better to be patient – leave the cask for as long as reasonable but ready on the 'stillage', soon after delivery, so that the cellar temperature has time to cool the beer as required. There is 'room for opinion' here on the ideal temperature at the point of sale, but as long as the beer feels at least 3 degrees F cooler in the glass than blood temperature ie 33 F or 12 C. - this is a 'rule of thumb' (and my preference).
4. The rôle of the bar staff is all important in their ability to serve beer so that it has the best condition in the glass and according to the customer's preference – this skill is in the judicious use of the sprinkler at the 'font head' (hand pump) - balanced with the power needed to knock the CO2 from out of the beer as it enters the glass.
5. Staff must also have basic knowledge of the product and equipment to be able to ascertain the best choice for each customer.
It is all very important and all bar staff must be trained properly before being allowed to serve anything – no buts….. !!!