Now this seems to be in good order and has always done for me in the past in terms of the final maturation of my beer... However, commercial real ale is typically aged in oak casks.
Are there any alternatives to the ubiquitous plastic beer barrel? The commercial ones are phenominally expensive... (I know this as I used to know what they cost to replace when they went missing!!!)
Cheers!
Reg
Equipment - Plastic Pressure Barrel
David Line had a chapter in his Big Book of Brewing on using wooden casks. It sounds like the work involved is more than it's worth to me (cleaning is a big problem due to the porous nature of wood), but if you want authenticity....
He suggested buying old casks (at the time the breweries were all getting rid of them in favour of kegs) but I've seen at least one shop that was selling a new homebrew wooden cask.
The casks they use in pubs these days are usually aluminium with a glass liner. They're obviously the best, but will, as you say, be very pricey and probably not available outside the trade (unless they're knocked off, of course!).
I sometimes think that plastic vessels impart a slight taint to beer; but to replace everything with stainless steel would be too expensive for me, and anyway I'm used to it now.
He suggested buying old casks (at the time the breweries were all getting rid of them in favour of kegs) but I've seen at least one shop that was selling a new homebrew wooden cask.
The casks they use in pubs these days are usually aluminium with a glass liner. They're obviously the best, but will, as you say, be very pricey and probably not available outside the trade (unless they're knocked off, of course!).
I sometimes think that plastic vessels impart a slight taint to beer; but to replace everything with stainless steel would be too expensive for me, and anyway I'm used to it now.
) 
) from my favorit brewery and a hand pump : that's fantastic 