WHY IS MORE REAL ALE NOT AVAILABLE?
As you will have read above, the yeast is kept alive in real ale to provide flavour and carbon dioxide within the barrel. As the yeast dies it falls to the bottom of the barrel as sediment or lees. The movement of the barrel to the pub causes the beer to be cloudy and the beer needs at least a couple of days of stillness before being served. The process of clearing is aided by finings added to the beer. Lager or keg ale has the yeast killed, and provided the dead yeast is removed, perhaps by filtering, the beer is clear when the barrel is filled. The training of managers and bar staff is expensive when it gets more complicated than which button to press for Carling. Let’s be honest, most bar staff in large turnover pubs are trained on the job – at least it looks that way to me! The idea of telling staff to keep movement of casks to a minimum, insert a softer bung (spile) to the cask to let it breathe, and ONLY serve it when it is ready etc, etc goes beyond the caliber of staff most nat
