Converting Kegerators for Serving Cask Ale

Converting an old refrigerator into a home draft system is a fun hobby. For kegerator enthusiasts that want to take it to the next level, converting your kegerator into a cask ale dispenser is a challenging and interesting project. The Beer Engine is the name of the apparatus which dispenses cask ales in most pubs. The cask ales are either kept in a cellar or refrigerated while the beer is siphoned off using a vacuum-style technique. Some specialty taps, tooling, and ingenuity will be necessary for this project.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of cask ale, it is basically the oldest know way of serving beer. Yes, some beer fans prefer quality over quantity (most like to have both!). If you are looking for small handcrafted kegs of beer, consider the cask ales. The main difference you will find between cask ales and regular beer is that cask ale is alive - it is never pasteurized and it is carbonated under its power. As a result, cask ale is served with either a gravity feed or an air pump instead of a CO2 tank. Usually, cask ale is served cool (about 54 degrees F.) but not cold. With the lower level of carbonation in most cask ales, keeping the beer cold is less of a concern. In some pubs, cask ale is even served at room temperature (mostly to honor the tradition of real ale). Most modern pubs and alehouses that serve cask ale in this day and age serve it slightly chilled. This prevents the ale form souring too quickly.

Some small modifications are necessary for converting your kegerator into a system that can dispense cask ales properly. You could always serve it the old fashioned way, straight from the cask, but opening and closing your kegerator to grab a pint is inefficient and may cause your other beers trouble as the temperature changes with each swing of the kegerator door. The style of kegerator that you own will factor greatly into your decision about which method of cask ale dispensation you would like to convert your kegerator into.

If you have a stand-up kegerator or kegerator conversion, you may be able to employ the gravity feed option. To do this, you will need to acquire the correct fitting for cask ale dispensation and modify this beer line to connect to your beer shank. You will need to have a shelf inside the kegerator. This may require you to flex some of those carpentry muscles again. You definitely need to elevate the cask above the level of your beer faucet. You may want to install a beer faucet and shank at a lower level on your kegerator for this purpose.

Another idea is to use a half sized fridge or freezer unit and convert that with a design that is cask ale friendly. This design would elevate the whole kegerator. The beer faucet is mounted near the bottom of the unit, making it easy to use a gravity fed system. Be careful with your measurements, and remember that any refrigerator unit bent to this purpose will need to be big enough for the cask to lay on its side inside the unit, with room for the tap, which extends for up to ten inches out of the side, usually.

If you have a large waist high freezer conversion style of kegerator, you will need to either use an air pump or create a vacuum style beer engine to suck the ale up into the beer faucet for dispensation. Modifying a hand air pump or bicycle tire pump and mounting it near your cask ale spigot is the quick and dirty way of doing this, but it kind of defeats the purpose of having the cask ale not under pressure. You will have to modify a soft spile in order to pump air into a cask. Soft spiles are the holes by which air normally enters the cask as the beer is dispensed from it. They are usually replaced by hard spiles (which allow no air through) after each drinking session. If you plan on installing a beer engine into your home draft system, you should familiarize yourself with the device and how it is used.

The beer engine is an airtight piston with a ½ pint chamber. When the beer engine's handle is pulled down, this raises the piston. The subsequent vacuum pulls up ½ a pint of beer at a time. If you are drawing beer from a cask that is not newly tapped, you will have to draw and throw away the first pint of the night. This is because the beer goes stale in the beer engine lines.

When dealing with cask ales, it is important to realize the many steps that need to be taken to keep the cask ale fresh and free of souring. Firstly, you must let the ale become properly conditioned before you even serve it. By letting it settle with a soft spile you allow the sediment to settle to the bottom of the keg, and to equalize with the local pressure somewhat. The process for tapping a cask ale is by far more time consuming than a regular keg of beer, and demands attention to detail - this is only the beginning. If you plan on undertaking this project, you must be willing to put the time and effort necessary into the work and the maintenance of this system.