Drink up, no more CO2

[mercalia]

I was under the illusion that when you made beer it produced its own gas. so it seems clearly I was mistaken, it has to be added. it is just another fizzy drink?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44545010

[mjr]

I was under the illusion that when you made beer it produced its own gas. so it seems clearly I was mistaken, it has to be added. it is just another fizzy drink?

I suspect there's a difference between the beer poured from the casks on the bar (on the wall behind the counter - that's the real bar, not the bit you lean on) and alcopops like Stella served from flip taps. A good summer beer is slightly gassy but not fizzy like some tap beers. I can't see how CO2 is needed to serve cask beer.

I seem to recall our "flat warm beer" being mocked in Asterix and the Britons and I don't recall seeing many bars with actual bars while travelling around, so maybe we're in a minority.

[[XAP]Bob]

It’s also used to *deliver* the fluid tho the tap - I.e to pump the beer they dump pressurised gas into the barrel in the cellar to ‘blow’ the drink up to the customer.

[PH]

It's a big deal locally where brewing is quite a large employer, people are being sent home and production reduced.
It seems to have come as a surprise, a couple of weeks ago the same brewers were recruiting agency staff in anticipation of the football. It's either some really awful planning or there's more to this story than we've heard so far.

[661-Pete]

I saw that article and then had to check the date..... I mean - come off it! Shortage of CO2 in the world?!

CAMRA have been on the case since the 1970s. And I heartily applaud their efforts, even though I drink very little these days. I still remember, with some regrets, my student days back then, when Watneys was "Grotneys" and Trumans was something you had to "avoid like the plague"...

So - who's for a pint of Double Diamond then? Yuck!

[Mick F]

Pubs use loads of CO2.
Mainly for the keg beers and ciders and for the soft drink guns, but some use a CO2 charge on their real ales so that as the beer is taken from the barrel, low pressure CO2 takes up the space rather than atmospheric air through a soft spile. It's supposed to keep the beer fresher.

Real ale by the bottle doesn't use CO2 as the beer produces its own in the sealed bottle. Cans, on the other hand, are generally CO2 enriched as the beer will be "dead". It's like that so that the cans can be treated roughly without them bursting. When you open one, it hisses out the CO2 and the dissolved CO2 makes the beer fizzy. Same as soft drinks in a can.

Therefore, a shortage of CO2 will affect the soft drinks and canned beer industries. It won't stop me buying pints of Dartmoor Legend, Butcombe Bitter, Otter Amber, or St Austell Tribute ................ depending which pub I'm in.

[PH]

It won't stop me buying pints of Dartmoor Legend, Butcombe Bitter, Otter Amber, or St Austell Tribute ................ depending which pub I'm in.

Unless all the keg drinkers switch and have drunk it first...

[Mick F]

Not many keg beer drinkers round here.
I struggle to think of ANY pub with keg beer locally .............. but all have lager and cider ......... and Guinness of course.

Best thing I can do is drink all the ales before they get to them!

[fausto copy]

So, what's the difference between keg, cask and draught please?

[Paulatic]

Draught Beer can be either cask or keg beer, it’s on drought and not out of a bottle.
Keg beer is out of those stainless steel barrels and forced out under co2. No care or skill required just plug it in.
Cask beer is IMHO the only one worth drinking has to be cared for and is pulled out of the barrel wiTh a hand pump. Or some places just open the tap and let it flow with gravity.

[CliveyT]

It’s also used to *deliver* the fluid tho the tap - I.e to pump the beer they dump pressurised gas into the barrel in the cellar to ‘blow’ the drink up to the customer.

That's the FLojet system- essential really if you have a long run from cellar to bar. The gas doesn't come into contact with teh beer though, so I don't think you need food-grade CO2 (or indeed CO2 at all- any compressed gas would do)

[mercalia]

ah so we can blame all the beer drinkers for global warming?

I suppose next thing will be rationing and fights in super markets and pictures on the news of queues and people camping out over night to get their booze wating for tomorrows delivery lorry to decant its cargoe, singing songs of "we'll meet again some sunny day" at the end of civilisation

[youtube]HsM_VmN6ytk[/youtube]

[thirdcrank]

... Cask beer is IMHO the only one worth drinking has to be cared for ...

Nothing much to do with CO2 but my own theory is that there's a circle here. A popular pub sells a lot of beer so they don't have chance to spoil it which makes the place popular and they sell a lot of beer. This is even more obvious with wine. Not so very long ago if you had ordered a glass of wine, apart from the funny looks you might have got the remains of a bottle that had been opened for ages. Not any more.

[Mick F]

Been up at the Queens Head and had two pints of St Austell Tribute. They open at 16:30 and I arrived at 17:00
No gas required other than the chat at the bar.

I looked.
No keg beer other than lager, a cider and the ubiquitous Guinness.
The four drinkers in there including me, were on real ales from hand pumps.

[Mick F]

PS:

Dame Vera's biggest selling record wasn't "We'll meet again" but "Auf Weidersehen Sweetheart" with an audience of RAF airmen singing along.
Makes me cry to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc0yVl5Y2y0

There's a live version with the RAF somewhere, but I can't find it.