Great Lakes Brewing News Archive

Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing

Originally Published: 10/97

By: Rudy Blaskovich

Just as I was gettin' comfortable with the progress of real ale in this country, along comes a slew of nitrogenated ales. It's not like a nitrobrew can't be good‹some of 'em ain't bad in a pinch‹but what's the point? I mean, why drink the beer equivalent of the consistently suckwind Cubs when you can watch the sometimes-good Sox? Is it progress to achieve consistency at the expense of greatness?

To keep real ale in a pub requires a cellar that keeps casks at about 55º Fahrenheit, and a cellarman who knows how to use it. That combination isn't too common in the United States. Which is why nitrobrews might make sense here.

Nitrobrews even make sense in England in certain cases. For example, what if you run a small pub that can't turn over a cask of real ale before it spoils? A nitrobrew will last considerably longer without going off. But for the most part, there's no reason to serve a nitrogenated ale in Great Britain.

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) came into being to promote cask beer over "keg beer," which is the filtered, artificially carbonated draft beer that's basically what we drink in the United States. CAMRA achieved great success, but now nitrogenated brews, along with the insipid swill known there as "lager," threaten to undo a lot of the progress they've made. And nitrobeer is nothin' but keg beer in a space-age package.

Nitrobrews have been around since 1964. That's when Guinness developed a nitrokeg that allowed them to cease production of cask beer. This ingenious device is pressured by a mix of 25% carbon dioxide and 75% nitrogen, which is approximately the proportion of nitrogen in air. It mimics the effect of real ale goin' through a sparkler, and it's done Guinness well.

The Guinness faucet forces the beer through tiny pinholes at about 30 pounds per square inch‹over twice the pressure of a normal tap. It pushes the nitrogen into solution, but it doesn't want to be there, so it rises to the top of the glass in the form of tiny bubbles, leaving a pint with low carbonation and a beautiful, creamy head.

In 1989 Guinness developed a nitrogen-charged can that replicated Draught Guinness. Whitbread designed their own version and the race was on. At first, it was just Guinness and Murphy's Stout that received the nitrogen treatment, but it wasn't long before you saw packaged and draft versions of nitrogenated Abbot Ale, Boddington's, Ruddles and others. These beers threaten to capture as much as 25% of the British beer market, and they're comin' to the U.S. in increasing numbers.

It's sad to see British beer drinkers turn their backs on real ale for a high-tech gimmick. But I understand why it's happening. I used to think that people would want the best if they knew it was there and they were induced to try it a few times. But the reality is that most people like bland, predictable McDonald's instead of a great burger cooked to order, like they have at Schoop's and Miner Dunn over in Indiana, for example. Like any gourmet product, real ale is gonna appeal to the few, and it's gonna remain a niche product, even in the country where it's best known.

Nitrogenation has its uses, but it has a serious downside. It never develops the nuances of real ale, and it tends to strip out bitterness. A beer like Pyramid DPA has the bitterness to shine through the nitrogen treatment. But a sweetish Scottish ale can fall flat on its face.

Like any innovation, nitrogenation requires intelligent decisions to achieve success. Go ahead and put your stouts on nitrogen. Go ahead and hook it up to some of your more bitter brews. But use good sense. Americans are used to going all-out with every piece of new technology they come across. In this case, that approach doesn't work.

Rudy Blaskovich is a displaced Chicagoan living on the East Coast. He prefers to get his nitrogen from the air he breathes.