Cask and bottle-conditioned beers:
– Real ale by CAMRA involves secondary fermentation
– Real ale is unfiltered and unpasteurized
– Yeast is present and living in the container
– Natural carbonation is retained through secondary fermentation
– Real ale is served without extraneous carbon dioxide
Filtered beer:
– Filtered beer is artificially re-carbonated
– Yeast is not present in filtered beer
– Distinction between real and other ales
– Natural carbon dioxide is lost during filtration
– Dispensing methods for real ale
Cask breather:
– Cask breather adds carbon dioxide to replace beer
– Cask breather extends beer’s saleable life
– Cask ales using cask breathers are now classified as real ale
– Cask breather does not use high-pressure gas
– Policy change by CAMRA in 2018 regarding cask breathers
CAMRA:
– CAMRA heavily promotes the expression real ale
– Term “real ale” coined in the 1970s
– Promoting independent breweries
– Campaign for Real Ale’s mission
– History and significance of CAMRA
Popularity:
– Cask ale remains popular in the UK
– 420 million pints of cask ale sold in the UK in 2019
– Cask ale accounts for 13.5% of all pints sold
– Cask ale described as Britain’s National Drink
– Britishness as a factor in promoting cask ale
Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) for beer that is "brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide".
