Handpumps are popping up in town

BEN CURRAN

Mike Pink owner of The Old Bank using a traditional hand pumped beer system.

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Judging by the number of handpumps popping up in bars up and down the country, it seems a growing number of Kiwis are developing a taste for hand-pulled beers. Here in Blenheim, for example, two bars have recently installed them and now offer hand-pulled beers on a regular basis.

In the United Kingdom, handpumps – or beer engines, as they are sometimes known – are a sure sign of traditional, cask-conditioned ales. Pulling the handle on a beer engine generates suction, which is used to draw the beer up the pipe and into the glass without the need for an electric pump or gas pressure. As such, it's a comparatively gentle way of dispensing beer and well suited to Britain's moderately-carbonated real ales.

The term `real ale' was coined in the early 1970s by Britain's fledgling consumer movement, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), to differentiate traditional cask-conditioned ales from the pasteurised and filtered `keg' beers that were increasingly dominating the market.

CAMRA's definition of `real ale' is specific: "Real ale is a beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide." It excludes all ales and lagers which have been pasteurised and/or filtered before leaving the brewery.

The term is also contentious. By describing one specific type of (mostly British) beer as `real', there's the implication that other beers are in some way unreal, fake, or less worthy of consideration. Anyone with a decent knowledge of beer would know that's not true.

When New Zealand's beer consumer group, the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA), was formed it was wise to be less specific in its objectives. Its aims include, "to promote awareness of beer in all its flavour and diversity, to promote quality, choice and value for money and to act as an independent resource for both the consumer, the pub trade, and the brewing industry". It's encouraging that SOBA (soba.org.nz) endorses high quality beers of all types, regardless of style, method of production or dispense.

With the exception of some excellent cask-conditioned beers from Galbraith's (Auckland), The Twisted Hop (Christchurch) and Townshend (Upper Moutere) and a handful of bottle-conditioned ales and wheat beers from other Kiwi craft brewers, the vast majority of New Zealand beers don't meet CAMRA's definition of real ale. Fortunately, handpumps can do an equally good job of dispensing other types of beer where high levels of carbonation are not appropriate.

In Blenheim last week, Dodson Street Alehouse was pouring a specially degassed version of Renaissance Elemental Porter through a handpump. Served at cellar temperature and only lightly carbonated, the beer's rich creaminess and mocha and roasty notes were emphasised, especially when compared with the regular, chilled, keg version. No less impressive was the extraordinarily `English'-tasting and highly suppable Townshend Cathcart's NTA, an aromatic pale ale that was being hand-pulled at The Old Bank in Redwoodtown.

Although both of these beers were `racked bright' (decanted off the yeast) before leaving the brewery and wouldn't have met with CAMRA approval, either would have stood up well against the finest English real ales. Proof that the appreciation of great beer should be determined by the nose and mouth rather than beer fundamentalism. Either way, the handpump definitely helped!

Cheers!

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