Beer handpump for cask ale.
"It sounds like a sci-fi weapon from Iain M. Banks"
— conversation snippet
A Brief History
The machine "for dispensing beverages" was first invented in 1691 by one John Loftig, a Dutch entrepreneur living in London. He created the mechanism that relied on a hand pump to draw beer (or cider or perry) to be dispensed into a drinking vessel. Further improvements were made in the 18th century by Joseph Bramah, an engineer and locksmith (he was also responsible for developing the hydraulic press and seriously improving steam engine pumps used in mining).
When I began my drinking around age 17 in England, it was during a time when the Campaign for Real Ale was really starting to take off. Their goals were many-fold, but for now it's enough to state that they were about preserving the qualities of traditional ale, cider and perry. Their ideal was (and still is!) to promote cask ale as the superior way of enjoying beer. The wooden cask was the traditional way of transporting and serving beer for many years, and CAMRA sought to raise the profile above that of the cheap, mass-produced keg beers, and encourage what is now known as "craft beer" from smaller breweries, as was tradition.
In most British pubs, cask beer would be kept in the cellar, and pumped up using a hand-operated machine. This is the beer engine. There's a cylinder with a piston at the top and a one-way valve at the bottom. Beer flows in through a pipe at the base, and it's dispensed through the "swan's neck" into the glass. At the end of the swan's neck there is frequently a device known as a "sparkler". This is a perforated device that introduces air into the ale as it passes through, so rather than producing a steady stream, there's a mix of gas and beer which forms a fuller head.
Traditionally the pump was made from brass, but regulations now dictate that any surface contacting the beer must be made of either stainless steel or food-safe plastic. The pump handle is longer than keg pump handles, and allows for the addition of the "pump clip", which advertises the brewery and the brew. Somewhere there is a museum for such things. Certainly I recall a brewery in Nottingham which had a wide range of pump clips from all over the country.
"A good pint should take a minute to pour"
The pump does take some strength to use; after all, you're pulling a column of beer up all the way from the cellar, ten feet (three metres) or more. It's hard work, especially as you're also trying to control the development of the head at the same time. It's not at all like pouring a keg beer by pulling a little switch, it takes quite a bit of effort. Some bartenders alternate arms between customers so as not to cause either repetitive strain injury or unbalanced shoulder and arm muscles, the so-called "barman's bicep".
The use of sparklers is somewhat controversial. It has several effects, one of which is to introduce more air into the beer, which helps form a good clean head. In addition, it knocks out a good deal of the COâ‚‚ from the beer, causing it to escape from solution, resulting in a slightly flatter beer. When a sparkler is in use you can see the head forming slowly from the bottom. This is the same effect given by a "nitro" keg pour, but it's just not the same beer in my view.
Many beers seem sweeter and less astringent with a sparkler, and of course there's a North-South divide; sparklers tend to be more popular in the North, leading to the accusation that the Northerners can't take a beer that's not flat. Then there's also the claim that the North just can't take the hoppiness, and prefer their beer insipid. Certainly this could explain why my preference (coming from the North Midlands) is for less astringency in my beers, and my major distrust of many modern IPAs. The other historical argument was also about the head; drinkers wanted more beer and less foam, an argument that wasn't settled until after CAMRA persuaded the government to introduce standards that included a line indicating where the pint should be. The effort to improve measures for drinkers continues.
I could go on about this, given that I'm a bit of a real ale snob. I could talk at length about the cellarman's art, but I will save that for another time. Meanwhile, Cheers, down the hatch!
For those who missed the Iain M. Banks reference, he wrote a science fiction novel Feersum Endjinn.
For Auspice, who wanted it.