About Real Ale
What is Real Ale?
Real ale completes its final fermentation in the container from which it is served. This provides carbonation naturally in the beer and typically will add more complexity to the flavor profile. Real ale is alive and is not pasteurized or filtered. Once the container is exposed to oxygen the flavor will change from day to day or sometimes even hour to hour. Fortunately cask ales are usually in excellent shape for at least two days and sometimes even better the second day. This is one reason why we have different offerings during each session. It is particularly interesting to note the changing flavors of a cask from day to day.
At a NERAX festival the beers are conditioned in casks so besides being real ale (also real lager) these can also be called cask-conditioned beer. Cask-conditioned beer is a subset of real ale since it is sometimes also bottle conditioned or can conditioned. On the NERAX stillage our casks are mostly firkins (10.8 US gallons) and pins (5.4 US gallons).
Real ales typically have a broader range of flavors compared to their force carbonated counterparts. There is less gassiness which allows your palate to experience the full spectrum of flavor, To enhance this flavor experience, real ales are best served at cellar temperature (52-55 ºF).
Real ale can be served by gravity from a tap, or drawn with a hand pump, electric air pump, or Scottish tall font. No pressurized or additional gas is added except atmospheric air as the cask is emptied. Some pubs will use a cask breather which prolongs the life of the beer (without adding additional carbonation) by not allowing it to be exposed to oxygen.
At NERAX we also serve real lagers and real ciders (and on rare occasions even real kombuchas and real meads!). These may use different yeast strains (and may ferment differently) but like real ale they complete the final fermentation in the container from which they are served.
Another great thing about cask-conditioned beer is it allows brewers more creativity by giving them an opportunity to add ingredients in the cask. Many cask pale ales and IPAs will have hops added in the cask. For stouts and porters you may see vanilla bean, cacao, and/or cinnamon added.
Some people confuse cask conditioned beers with cask aged beers. A cask aged beer is typically aged in a wooden vessel (usually an oak barrel previously filled with whiskey, wine, bourbon, or rum) but is not conditioned in the vessel so the carbonation is not created naturally in the beer.
Is Real Ale Vegan?
A discussion of beer clarification additions in cask beer
Michael Labbe
Brewery Engineer.
As the former Head Cellarman for many years at NERAX festivals, one of the questions I have heard most often is, “Is Real Ale vegan?” The answer is not necessarily cut and dried. Ingredient choices and personal interpretation are both factors. The discussion begins and ends with what are called finings.
These are “process aids” that are added to a cask to accelerate clarification of the beer. Traditional finings are positively charged particles which, when added to beer, bind with yeast in suspension, which is negatively charged. As the finings and yeast bind together, they get heavier and precipitate out of the beer, clarifying it much more quickly than waiting for the yeast to settle on its own.
Isinglass finings are a traditional choice, and are still in common use today. Isinglass is a collagen derived from the dried swim bladders of certain fish. In practice, Isinglass added to a cask sediments out quickly, so never makes its way out of the cask. For this reason, many argue that it is not actually an ingredient, but merely a process aid in short term contact with the beer, that is not present in the glass. Others disagree, arguing that from the moment Isinglass is added, a cask is no longer vegan, regardless of whether the Isinglass is consumed or not. In this case, it’s a very personal choice with no right or wrong answer.
The discussion is made much clearer (pun intended) with the advent of Isinglass alternatives that are vegan-friendly. One example is Biofine® Clear by Kerry Ingredients and Flavors. Biofine® Clear is a colloidal solution of silicon dioxide (Silica), the most abundant mineral in the earth’s crust. According to Rubens Mattos, D.Sc., of Kerry, “Biofine Clear is a colloidal silica which is positively charged at the pH of beer. Thus it combines with the negatively charged yeast cells and increases settling velocity by increasing the size of the suspended particles.” Biofine® Clear works in exactly the same manner as Isinglass!
The NERAX stillage is stocked with casks that may come to us from the brewery fined with Isinglass, fined with Isinglass alternatives, fined by us at the festival, or not fined at all. CASC has standardized on the use of Biofine® Clear for all on-site fining at NERAX festivals. This means that any cask that is fined at NERAX is vegan-friendly in the strictest possible sense. This year our program includes fining information for the US beers on the stillage, so that you can make an educated decision based on your own determination. For those beers that are not specified (such as the UK beers), a safe assumption is that the cask was fined at the brewery using Isinglass.
*Biofine® is Kerry’s trade name for finings, and includes both Biofine® and Biofine® Clear. While Biofine® Clear is vegan-friendly, Biofine® is Isinglass.