Beer engine bubble question

[BrewChron]

I'm in the US where we don't know that much about beer engines. The aspect of beer engines that I'm interested in is when you pull a pint that starts out full of bubbles that rise to the surface. I've heard that it's the "swan neck" spout that creates this, but also that simlpy forcing the beer through the beer engine's outlet, regardless of the type, will create this. So what is the reality? Do you need a swan neck for this to occur or is it simply from having the swan neck in the beer itself when you're pulling the pint (since obviously you won't get those bubbles in the beer if the spout is not in the beer).

[adeybambam]

What you need is a beer engine with a swan neck that reaches to the bottom of the glass. To the end of the swan neck you fit a "sparkler". That forces the beer through tiny holes and creates the tiny bubbles that rise up through the beer creating a thick creamy head. To pour, put the swan neck to the bottom of the glass and pull the beer through quickly, creating maximum turbulence.

The use of sparklers over here and the preference for a head on your beer is a hot topic with a real North / South divide. Search for "sparkler" and you'll see what I mean. Personally, I love beer served this way.

This is an example of a beer engine with swan neck:

http://www.a1barstuff.co.uk/detail.asp?ProdID=247
This is a sparkler:

http://www.a1barstuff.co.uk/detail.asp?ProdID=516

I picked up my own engine via ebay for about £30.

[flytact]

AAHHHH!
Another North/South debate.
I have a regular neck and still get the bubbles rising. I'm to believe that it's just the nature of something carbonated moving through the cylinder and lines.

[BrewChron]

Yes, so your two somewhat different opinions demonstrate the issue. I do understand that a sparkler can make more bubbles and creamier foam, but I also know that you can get a similar yet less pronounced effect with a swan neck that doesn't have a sparkler, as long as it's submersed in he beer. And I also know that using restricted beer lines (as with kegerators) reduces foaming. So the only conclusion that I can draw is that the beer engine itself excluding the swan neck actually produces the bubbles in the beer, while the swan neck gives you the ability to make them stay in the pulled pint for a little while, with them soon rising to the surface.

[jim williams]

There is that Northern vs Southern dispense debate for sure, but I think it has more to do with proper condition in the beer than anything else. The times I've spoken to northerners about this subjet it always comes back to aesthetic rather than flavor. To my taste, a sparkled beer always tastes flatter, and "older" for lack of a better word. That head is created by the beer being forced through tiny holes, and it's just co2 breaking out of solution. Consequently, to my taste, when compared to non sparkled beer it tastes flat, oxidized, off. Non sparkled beer, when properly conditioned produces a great long lasting head and is bursting with condition and flavor.

To each his own I suppose. As the cellarman at The Lion in Nottingham told me standing in his cellar sampling Castle Rock Harvest Pale Ale (had just been named Champion Beer of Britain at the GBBF) "it's your ale, you should have it any way you like". Of course, he felt it was best served gravity, "but I remove the bloody sparkler upstairs"

Case in point. Notice the short spout without a sparkler!

Mid pour


and topped up/settled



The sparkler is to me just a sham used to artificially create a head on a beer. It's really unfortunate that so many bars in the US are now serving cask beer, but not taking any consideration to the beer being poured and the default sparkler is a good example of this.

[FlippinMental]

From what I'm to understand there are (or were) two different types of beer engine run-off; the swan neck that is designed to create the head, and a tap like run-off that doesn't, though I can't say hand on heart that I've seen the latter. Being a southerner I'd ban the the sparkler, its nothing more than a device to cheat you out of even more of the pint you paid for, and besides it also ruins the flavour.

FM

[BrewChron]

So in response to Jim Williams, without a sparkler and with a short spout you are still getting an effect like with a sparkler, just to a lesser degree, right? And if so, when that happens, do you submerse the spout into the beer to any degree?

[jim williams]

So in response to Jim Williams, without a sparkler and with a short spout you are still getting an effect like with a sparkler, just to a lesser degree, right? And if so, when that happens, do you submerse the spout into the beer to any degree?

I still get the effect top to bottom, but again it depends on condition of the beer itself which you control through the cask conditioning itself! I never submerge the short spout. I don't see a point, and it's one more thing to keep clean

[flytact]

I agree with the above. Pour a beer from a bottle conditioned beer and you"ll get the "bubbling effect". My best case would be gravity dispense, personal preference, in lieu of that I try to get the beer out of my corny keg with as little disturbance as possible.

[jim williams]

I should probably also add that I use a breather since there's no way I'll be going through a cask in a couple days. With the breather I'm able to get exactly the conditioning I'm looking for using a soft spile, then hook it up to the breather and the condition maintains for the life of the cask. I can certainly appreciate that maintaining optimal condition in a pub cellar would be alot more difficult. However, the condition I like in my cask beer is what Mark Dorber describes his beers being like here
http://www.anchoratwalberswick.com/page/cellarmanship

I love this quote from the above article:
"We drink with our eyes and then jazz up flat beer by forcing it through a tight sparkler. We cannot put our well-conditioned pale ales through a sparkler at the White Horse without substantial wastage due to the relatively high level of CO2 in solution.

I wouldn't say my beers have "relatively high level of CO2..", but they're well conditioned and achieve what you're looking to do. It appears that Mr Dorber's beers do in the commercial atmosphere. I've never been to the Anchor, but beers at the White Horse Parsons Green have always been more conditioned than those elsewhere that I've tried. Bass, Harveys Best Bitter, Adnams Best come to mind.

[BrewChron]

Thanks for the great responses, you've helped quite a lot. However, I have one more question. Certainly you get bubbles in the beer that rise to the surface whether you pour a bottle of beer or use a handpump. But do you get smaller bubbles with denser foam when using a handpump without a sparkler? So, in that sense, does using a handpump without a sparkler give you creamier foam and finer bubbles that rise to the top?

[Dennis King]

I bought my beer-engine last year and its a swan neck, I`m probably going against convention but I use it without a sparkler, tried it and don`t like it, and I don`t put the end to the bottom of the glass. More than happy with the quality and condition of my pint.

[NewPeculier]

Some of it depends on beer style and personal taste. Beer through a swan-neck sparkler is flatter in the mouth and it also softens off some of the bitterness - and I think it maximises the mouthfeel. For some beer-styles or personal tastes this is good, for others it is not - cant imagine why you'd want to soften the bitterness of some IPAs for example!

I'm yorkshire born & bred so I grew up on sparkled yorkshire bitter. These days I prefer many beers poured without a sparkler (had a lovely gravity poured pint in the Bree Louise, Euston today!) but certain beers, and particularly stouts, I would still prefer through a sparkled swan neck hand pump.

All that said, I'm very intrigued by the results jim williams gets from his pump - I've never seen a tight head like that achieved without a sparkler.

[adeybambam]

brewchron - in my experience, you will get a tighter head and smaller bubbles with a sparkler. Whether you want that or not is up to you!