What is REAL ALE?

[stellabella]

Discuss amongst yourselves.

My husband and I savored a couple pints [st. Peters' Best Bitter and Honey Porter] in London's Jerusalem Tavern this evening and tried to answer the question ourselves. My spouse, considerably more knowledgeable than myself in all things beer, claims that bitters are real ales. Real ales are cask conditioned, bitters are especially well-hopped. It's all about the amount of time the yeast plays and farts and bubbles, etc. But I'd like to hear what the experts have to say.

For the record so far I'm particularly enamored with Thwaite's Mile, Exmoor Stag, Cain's Formidable, and Young's Special. The Shepherd's Neame Spitfire promises goodness but I'm not so sure I had the best sampling of it. The St. Peters' ales are first rate.

[jaybee]

SB, this isn't to answer your question (I don't know the answer) but it brought to mind a commercial from the dim past for Ballentine Ale. The song went:

"Who is the ale man?

He could be you.

A man with a taste for a manlier brew.

Who is the ale man.

He could be you.

A man with a thirst for Ballentine's brew.

Try the smoother, cleaner, fresher taste

of Ballentine ale."

Chorus

[AdamLawrence]

Stella

Real ale is defined as beer that continues to condition after it leaves the brewery. That means it can either be cask-conditioned, or bottle-conditioned (there is a vast range of bottle-conditioned beers available now, as compared to a few years ago, when there were only about five or six different brews made that way in Britain). The opposite of real ale is beer that has been pasteurised to kill the yeast: beer like this will not continue to improve in its packaging.

Real ale can be mild, bitter or any other style. You can have real lager too, though I'm not sure of any brands that aren't pasteurised and continue to condition in their packaging.

When the yeast is left alive in a beer, it develops more complex flavours - in a similar way to a wine improving in the bottle - although the process is much quicker - and the beer will be naturally lively. Pasteurised beer uses artificially added gas, either carbon dioxide or a nitrogen-based mixture, to produce its bubbles. Some strong bottle-conditioned beers improve for long periods - Thomas Hardy Ale is famous for this.

If you can find it while you're in London, my absolute favourite beer in the world is Timothy Taylor's Landlord, brewed in Keighley, Yorkshire. It's generally available at the Dog and Duck on the corner of Frith Street and Bateman Street in Soho, and Simon M mentioned one time that he'd seen it in the Wenlock on occasions.

cheers - mine's _definitely_ a pint of Landlord

Adam (who is visiting his parents in Yorkshire this weekend, and might get a pint or two of Landlord in while he's there)

[John Whiting]

Another clue when you're in a pub: real ale "on tap" is brought up from the cellar with a large hand pump, not raised by gas pressure. Many pubs have fake hand pumps, but you can tell them apart easily when the beer is being drawn.

There are bitters on the market which are in fact pasteurized/pressurized and are not real ale.

And yes, St. Peters is utterly supurb, especially their Organic Ale. It's a blessing that there are now so many fine bottled beers, so that you needn't live near a good pub in order to enjoy them.

[AdamLawrence]

John is _broadly_ correct: the tall handpump is the most obvious identifier of real beer in a pub. But it's not infallible: you can use electric pumps to dispense real beer, or it can be poured straight from the barrel (either from a stillage behind the bar, or from the cellar). The electric pump is rare these days precisely because the handpump is such a potent symbol, but used to be very common indeed, especially in the north and midlands. Fake handpumps are most commonly used to dispense non-real cider; Scrumpy Jack is a regular offender that CAMRA and its offshoot APPLE have targeted over the years.

St Peter's beers are OK - I too like the Organic Ale - but it's as well to note that the bottled versions are NOT real ale, but are pasteurised. If you like St Peter's beers, try Hop Back Summer Lightning from Salisbury - a fabulous drink, and readily available in bottle-conditioned (ie real) form (I know Oddbins stock it).

Adam

[g.johnson]

I don’t know whether it’s still done, but in the 70s it was common to use carbon dioxide to pump even cask conditioned beers – the technique was called ‘top pressure’. The result may have been somewhat better than the pasteurized beers but they were still overwhelmingly gassy. I'm sure CAMRA frowned on the method and would not have regarded the ale as 'real'.

[stellabella]

Who are the ale men?

I think I know!

They're commited elsewhere, though. Pity you can't drink with me at the Wenlock tonight. Adam, while having pints at the Wenlock the other night my husband stood up and gathered all the empty glasses from our table and returned them to the bar. Simon proclaimed him "A true Yorkshireman" and of course I'm sure this is probably true ancestrally, but we're certainly both dyed-in-the-wool Yanks, period.

You've answered my question beautifully and now watch me go try to impress cute guys in pubs. [oops, don't tell my spouse ]

[AdamLawrence]

I think Simon has been too long away from Yorkshire. A true Yorkshireman avoids going anywhere near the bar, in case he's forced to pay for a round (See my sig for further details). Note that Yorkshire folk were described once as 'Scots, but without the sense of humour and generosity."

g.j: Be warned, you are entering dangerous territory here. In CAMRA circles, this is known as the Great Cask Breather Wars. Pressurised dispense is definitely not 'real', because carbon dioxide is soluble in beer, hence the gassiness you correctly diagnose. That's why the newer keg beers, such as Caffreys, and the various 'Cream....' designated stuff uses a nitrogen-based mix (they're called nitrokegs, and less vile than old-style keg, but still pretty lacking in flavour). But, once a cask is opened and some beer removed, air gets in, and the beer starts to oxidise. Eventually, it goes off. To deal with this, some breweries and pubs use a device called a cask breather, or 'blanket pressure'. This is connected to the cask, and causes gas to flow into the barrel to replace the beer that's been drawn out. It's at low pressure (not much more than atmospheric pressure) so it doesn't do anything in relation to the dispense, but obviously it has a different effect on the beer.

Reasons for using a cask breather: it stops the beer oxidising and keeps it fresh for longer. This is useful in pubs with relatively low beer turnover; they can keep a wider range of brews on, because they don't need to empty a cask in two or three days. Some very respected brewers - especially the long-established independents with their own tied estate of local or rural pubs - were or are devoted to the breather for this reason. Less popular but significant beer styles, such as mild, are often preserved only because of this technology (many pubs can't empty a cask of mild in reasonable time).

Reasons against using the breather: "It's not real ale if it's not open to the atmosphere"; using gas, even at low pressure may change the flavour of the beer; some people like the taste of beer that has started to oxidise.

This has been a very hot topic in beer circles for years. CAMRA policy was - and may still be, I'm not sure - that no pub using a cask breather can be listed in the Good Beer Guide. As the GBG is very important to listed pubs, and some of the chief advocates of the breather were breweries such as King and Barnes (now defunct) and Shepherd Neame - old established family firms that CAMRA in general supported - it became extremely controversial.

Me - I've always tried to render the whole problem irrelevant by drinking in pubs that turn their beer over quickly. Years ago, when I lived in Leeds, I drank in a Tetley house that had consistently excellent beer. I asked the landlord what his secret was: "We sell a 36 gallon barrel of Tetley Bitter each day, and three of them on a Saturday" he said. That would help.

Stella: if you're still in London from August 6-10, you might want to visit the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia. It's very good fun - I go each year. See www.camra.org.uk for more info.

cheers

Adam

[g.johnson]

Yorkshiremen: Short arms, deep pockets.

[stellabella]

i leave august 5. i did catch the festival in 1996, though. great fun.

i'll be on the look-out for the landlord.

[Simon Majumdar]

In my dictionary, real ale is defined by being cloudy and only ever served by men in home crocheted sweaters who have their little finger stuck in one ear and sing songs about "leaving Liverpool, never to return"

Adam, you can take the boy out of Yorkshire...,etc. A good tyke should always carry his pots t'bar. Which field were you dragged up in?

You will be telling me next that you only had fruit on the sideboard when someone was ill.

S

[stellabella]

men in home crocheted sweaters who have their little finger stuck in one ear

Are you LOCAL?

[Tyke]

Real ale, could there be an argument for any that makes you fall down wobbly and dribble?

There is excellent new one from my part of the world:

Wentworth Breweries (Yes Simon from Wentworth and was originally only served in the George) WPA, or Woppa to its mates!

It is now available as guest beer to different pubs and if you see it try it. Assuming it has made the trip okay and the landlord is no do-nut it should be excellent, and at London prices is worth using both sides of the bog roll in an effort to afford it.

When I lived in London I used to go fairly regularly to The Dove at Hammersmith (Fullers) and another pub off Kensington High St that probably served the best Youngs Special in London.

[Wilfrid]

The Dove is a terrifyingly unpleasant gin palace, isn't it, but I am partial to a pint of Fullers. I can order Fullers London Pride and even ESB in the DBA bar on First Avenue, but it comes up cold and fizzy through one of those mean electric pump things. Not the same. I also find New York bars offering Old Speckled Hen as a similar chilled, fizzy lager-substitute. Not a good idea.

I am very lucky that I largely stopped drinking bitter several years before quitting the UK. Otherwise I'd miss it terribly.

[Tyke]

Actually on recollection there was another pub off belgravia sq which served even better fullers than the dove, and as I had a flat near there at the time meant I did not have to pilot the MG home pissed as a parrot!

Trouble with the Dove was an ex Landlord wrote a book chronicling his times there, result; a pub full of nobs virtually overnight!