real ale? cask conditioned homebrew?

Question

I'd like to try making British style "real ale" at home. That would require having some kind of cask for the final stages of fermentation. What do British homebrewers use? Can anyone recommend something from personal experience? I see some plastic "pressure barrels" on UK homebrew supply sites. Is that what one uses? The pressure barrels seem to be meant for use with CO2 cartridges, but real ale is generally served from a hand pump.

Matt_Hendry · Accepted Answer

Allot of the commercial real ales kegs are either plastic lined or stainlessbarrels that have hole for the tap and a side hole for the bung I have seenfood grade plastic barrels hidden under the bar and dawn with a hand pump insome pubs the wooden keg on the bar was just a dummy barrel to look the partso you could just put it in a food grade jerry can  and chill it needs to beserved that's the way I saw it done A friend of mine has a small brewery andhe does a monthly real ale keg he just racks it off his conditioning tanksand primes the keg with sugar lets it lager for a month in his coolroom andthen takes the keg to the pub and serves it that day through a hand pumpvery nice he does have an ice bucket with a coil to appeal to the Australianpalate for cool beer but apart from that its pretty much real ale and foryou purists don't jump all over this post its just an example of how it wasdone in Oz

real ale? cask conditioned homebrew?

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