Does anybody remember Truman Tap Bitter?
I used to manage a bar back in the 1970's and handled Ind Coope hand-pumped cask conditioned bitter which needed the traditional cellar work. We took this Truman Tap Bitter (from the Brick Lane Brewery) for a while which was marketed as a real ale. As I remember, it came in a keg with a Sankey type top fitting so was obviously pulled out via a dip tube. There was a gas fitting but insufficient pressure to push the beer out which was hand-pumped. The beer had to be settled for 2 or 3 days before drawing, so you always kept another ready for connection without having to move it.
Now that some some cask-conditioned beers are served from normal casks with a gas connection (cask breather) just to provide a blanket of CO2 without carbonating the beer, instead of a soft spile which lets air in, I'm wondering if this Tap Bitter was served on the same principle and if the system's still in use. It did enable establishments without much in the way of cellarage to serve a 'real ale' without the work of handling traditional casks and the risk of the occasional beer shower when the spiles and taps didn't go in straight!
Purists will not agree with applying CO2 to real ale at all, but this stuff did keep well and wasn't a bad pint.
Trumans were very hot on quality control. A friend of mine managed a farm around that time and their entire spring barley crop used to go to Trumans. They'd come out and check the growing crop for moisture content etc. They must have done their own malting. I suppose all the big breweries work like that.