In addition to the name of the beer served through the pump, they may give other details such as the brewer's name and alcoholic strength of the beer and serve as advertising. To understand the sparkler, it is important to understand how real ale is served in the English pub. In America, we use systems that push the beer out of a keg and through the tap by forcing pressurized co2 through the lines. With real ale, because of the beer’s natural and relatively low carbonation, the influence of extraneous CO2 is frowned upon. Not only is the use of forced CO2 not traditional, it can over carbonate real ale and hinder the change of favorable flavors caused by oxidation. Perhaps the south’s primary gripe with the sparkler is that it produces a finger or two of head, which replaced another ounce or two of beer. The sparkler, it’s argued, results in a short pour. On a final note and as a dire warning not to let the great American tradition of pretending they invented something great and therefore know all about it, creep into cask ale writing, I recently read a treatise online vehemently demonising the sparkler. The writer’s credentials? He was an American who cited his visit to “the great Yorkshire city of Burton Upon Trent” as inspiration for his tirade against the sparkler……’Nuff said. Musings over.

Evan. It’s a fair cop-I don’t earn the majority of my income from writing, so couldn’t/wouldn’t claim to be a professional writer. However, unlike most bloggers, I have actually had hard copy published, and practised editorial duties, so I would hope I understand the nature of the written word. I will take the charitable view that you simply misunderstood my comments, rather than being too dense to understand them. Basically, all I was doing was agreeing with Stonch about everyone making certain, basic, assumptions. I didn’t say anything about assuming readers know “exactly” what I’m on about-my blog is deliberately just about pubs and drinking, and nothing technical. You can’t get more basic than that. But, for example, I do make the same assumptions that most (including this excellent one), beer blogs make. I expect the readers to be generally interested in beer/pubs, and I don’t continuously explain what real ale is. I don’t think crediting the reader with above amoeba level intelligence is any bad thing.New Springs is only two miles from the centre of Ince. You see its Crown Hotel pictured, a handsome house that looks old enough to have been the locale where Barker did his field work. Still, the matter of sparkler and cask ale quality remains. For what it’s worth I prefer cask bitter without the sparkler. Its effect seems to blunt hop flavour and generally flatten out the taste. That said, it wasn’t so convincing a test as to make us ask for the sparkler to be removed every time. And I have to say that late that day I had a lovely sparkled half of Theakston’s Old Peculiar, which I’ve never really enjoyed before in its “raw” state. So, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to say that non-sparkled beer was “better” than sparkled beer across the board.

But Worthington is seven miles from Ince, likely too far for Barker to have travelled there unless he did so intermittently.Pump clips can be made of various materials. For beers that are brewed regularly by the big breweries, high quality plastic, metal or ceramic pump clips are used. Smaller breweries would use a printed plastic pump clip and for one-off beers laminated paper is used. There are variations on the material used, and the gaudiness or tastefulness of the decoration depending on how much the brewery wants to market their beers at the point of sale. Novelty pump clips have also been made of wood, slate and compact discs. Some even incorporate electronic flashing lights. Older pump clips were made of enamel. What if we told you that there was a device that could help you pour beer from traditional cask-conditioned ales? Pouring the perfect beer every time. And all you had to do was follow a few simple steps with a hand pump? The Beer Engine is just that device, and this guide will show you how to use it like a pro. Whether it's mounted to the bar top or used with a clamp on.

Traditionally, northern beers or more correctly, Yorkshire beers are served through a sparkler while beers from other regions are served without. As a proud Yorkshireman I’m no doubt influenced to some degree by this but as that proud Yorkshire man, I’m a little saddened that some of the best cask ale pubs in our city are choosing to serve their beer without that tight, creamy head which clings to the glass and lets you know how many pulls you’ve had from it. In this Google maps view, you see the route from Ince to the Crown Hotel. The route wends further to another Crown Hotel in Worthington. That is another old public house, now closed. I thought it might have been the place Barker did his testing.Tyson, your date of first internet use (wow! congratulations! you’ve got street cred, bro!) doesn’t do anything to change this fact: assuming that your readers know exactly what you’re talking about is not widely considered a practice of good writing — not in blogs, not in newspapers, not anywhere. I gather from your comment that you’re not a writer by profession, so I do understand your confusion there. The northerner may agree that the beer is negligibly flatter but the mouthfeel of the sparklered beer is far smoother, even creamy. A sparkled beer is, therefore, more quaffable. One, you can get a clamp-on engine for your countertop or two you can get one and mount it. Make sure to select a model that is made specifically for dispensing cask-conditioned beer, as this will ensure the best results. The cost of returning the product(s) and postal insurance is the responsibility of the customer unless otherwise specified.

It’s often argued by the no sparkler corner that perfectly conditioned beer needs no sparkler. Probably true but as with most things in life, true perfection is well nigh impossible to achieve on a regular basis. There are so many variables from brewer to cellar man that the perfectly conditioned pint is not always achievable no matter how good the craftsman. It would make sense then to get a little help wherever we can. A sparkler is a device that can be attached to the nozzle of a beer engine. [4] Designed rather like a shower-head, beer dispensed through a sparkler becomes aerated and frothy which results in a noticeable head. More CO 2 is carried into the head, resulting in a softer, sweeter flavour to the body due to the loss of normal CO 2 acidity. [5] The first advertisement I saw left off the “l” in Hotel, or the upload to Google Books did that. I thought that “Ince” must also be a misprint, or an imperfect uploading again. But no, Ince is a real place nearish to Manchester, Ince-in-Makerfield. (About 17 miles). You don’t read much today about “the sparkler – is it good or bad?”, but oceans of ink and bandwidth were sacrificed in the past to a cause that seems delphic to non-initiates.

In the past beer was poured into the cistern through a hand pump or beer engine. The brew engines are dispenser devices geared to traditionally made beers in cask conditions. The device allows the beer to be stored beneath the bar, pulled out of the bar, or poured into the barrel. The handle of a handpump is often used as a symbol of cask ale. This style of beer has continued fermentation and uses porous and non-porous pegs, called spiles, to respectively release and retain the gases generated by fermentation and thus achieve the optimum level of carbonation in the beer. Cask ale of course has no CO2 added at the brewery or pub, so, as it pours fairly flat, the sparkler enlivened pints that looked unattractive. For some reason the south has never minded flat pints, it may be palate-related, it may be the desire to have a brimful glass. The beer engine is normally located below the bar with the visible handle being used to draw the beer through a flexible tube to the spout, below which the glass is placed. Modern hand pumps may clamp onto the edge of the bar or be mounted on the top of the bar. There is some dispute about the benefits of a sparkler. There is an argument that the sparkler can reduce the flavour and aroma, especially of the hops, in some beers. [6] The counter argument is that the sparkler takes away harshness. [7]