BEER

Real ale

Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1973 ^[1] for a type of beer defined as "beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide". ^[2] It’s a definition that, like Germany’s Reinheitsgebot, can be seen as quite restrictive^[3]. However, the term "traditional ingredients" is designed, like the Reinheitsgebot, to prevent artificial preservatives or cheap adjuncts or chemicals from being used in the making or storing of the beer. The heart of the definition is the "matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed". If the beer is unfiltered, unpasteurised and still active on the yeast, it is a real beer - the container can be a cask, a bottle or an aluminum can, it doesn’t matter. If the yeast is still alive and still conditioning the beer, it is "real".

Cask-conditioned beers and bottle conditioned beers are often referred to as real ales, though by the terms of CAMRA's definition not all cask or bottle conditioned ales are real ale; in particular, some American-style brewpubs may use collected carbon dioxide during the serving process which would disqualify them from claiming real ale status.