Friday, April 12, 2013

Carson Street Deli Beer Engine






Look what I found. South Side has a new real ale destination in the Carson Street Deli at 1507 E Carson St. One week before tax day Mike had a new beer engine installed and is now committed to serving real ale. For those that may not know, a beer engine is a hand operated vacuum device that draws beer from a cask under the bar or in a cellar. The beer is less carbonated than regular keg beer, which had been pressurized with added carbon dioxide gas. Cask beer enables the delicate aromas and finer textures to come through.

What is called real ale is well made beer that has no preservatives or chemicals to make it “better”. The brewer does that with clean water, young grain and fresh hops. The beer does ferment at the brewery as all beer does. But with real cask ale, the yeast is not filtered out of the beer but remains. The brewer adds priming sugar to the keg so that it under go’s a secondary fermentation on its way to the pub and in the pub’s cellar. This keeps the beer under a mild carbon dioxide blanket but does not over carbonate the beer. This is an excellent way to drink a craft beer.
Cheers to Mike.

Check the Deli’s tweets for updates on what’s coming through the engine.