Advise to pubs with real ale

We hope you are all keeping safe and well in these unprecedented times.

After the announcement from the government regarding pub closures I want to give some advice to customers who might have stock of our beer remaining after your doors have closed.

If you still have sealed barrels, so unvented and untapped, keep them this way in your cellar, as long as they are kept at 10deg C or lower they should last well beyond their best before date especially if the ABV is above 4.5%.

If you have just tapped or vented your barrel then try as best you can to seal it up – make sure the tap is in the off position, takeout any soft pegs and replace with hard, non-porous pegs to make the barrel air tight, it may be an idea to top up the slight loss of beer from tapping with clean tap water using a sterile jug – the less oxygen in the barrel the longer it will last. The natural CO2 created by the beer should help to keep it in as best condition as can be expected from this situation.

If you have already started serving the beer then I would recommend that you try to sell it as best you can, take away carry kegs or even ask customers to bring their old 2l plastic bottles and provide a take away service, if you fill straight from the handpump without a sparkler it will be fine just make sure you fill to the brim so that it lasts longer for your customer – again less oxygen on the beer is key.

We really appreciate everyone’s business over the past few weeks and hope that this advice goes a little way in helping you through these difficult times.

Hopefully we will all get through this relatively unscathed. and we will see you on the other side.