Pulling is Good, Though Pouring Does Just Fine

Englishmen are more inclined to pull you know. Here in craft though, you’ll most see us direct pulling. It gets the job done faster. What am I talking about? I’m discussing methods of serving beer. There is a bit of a quirky way in Beerology we describe getting beer into a glass. While “pouring” a beer makes sense, it’s a little harder to image how you “pull” a beer and how would you “direct pull”? Also, how does draught beer fit into things: was this originally conscripted for the armed forces? And while we’re having a bash at it, do you know how to blow or spike a keg? It’s a little confusing but it will all makes sense soon, so relax, lay back, and let’s work our way though it together.

Pour
To move beer from a can or bottle into a glass you “pour” a beer. Simple enough but apparently we say it incorrectly. According to an outspoken Scotsman I once had a baffling conversation with, here in AUNZ we don’t use the Queen’s English properly. He then proceeded to demonstrate that “pour”, “paw”, and “poor” are all supposed to be pronounced differently, contrary our customs down under.

Pull
To move beer from keg into a glass you “pour” or “pull”. The perplexing term “pull” in regards to beer isn’t used that often in AUNZ but it has its moments. It comes from the traditional English method of drawing up, or pulling up, beer from the cellars underneath via a beer pump. Either under the counter or below in the cellar sat a pump. While these are generally manual, they can also be electric or gas powered. Manual pumps would use the long beer pouring handles as a lever to manually pump the beer up and into the glass. In AUNZ if a venue was pumping up beer, such as around a large venue, or up a story from the keg room, it would commonly do so via a CO2 pump.

Source: Baileysbeerblog.blogspot.com - Paul’s Beer & Travel Blog: Pulling a pint, or pouring a pint?

The mechanism of pumping beer, which saved staff running downstairs to the cellar to get the cooler beer, was invented by the London residing John Lofting in about 1688. The Dutch inventor, merchant and manufacturer also invented a few other things including fire fighting equipment and a knurling machine for thimbles. Knurling is the cutting or pressing into a smooth surface a series of cuts, patterns, and or indentations which assists with gripping, and in the case of repair of wear, such as with pistons, with raising parts of the surface to re-establish contact with its surroundings, such as making the worn piston again fit snuggly inside its encasing cylinder. While thimbles aren’t so common now days, thank Johnnie the next time you reach for your stereo knub in your car. Notice how you easily grip it thanks to the knurling groves running around it. Johnnie helped industrialise the application of knurling. One other notable beer pumper was the English inventor and locksmith Joseph Bramah who greatly advanced the beer pump in 1797. Though he is best remembered for improving flushing toilets, inventing the hydraulic press, and fathering with William Armstrong hydraulic engineering.

Direct Pull
It’s not very common in AUNZ to use pumps for beer. Mostly our beer is delivered simply by the gas which gets pushed into the pressurised kegs. This pressure pushes the beer down the lines up and out the beer taps. When the taps are drilled into the side of the fridge (cold room) which contains the kegs of beer we call this “direct pull”. We are directly pulling the beer out of the keg in the cold room and straight into the glass. This is my preferred method and what I have in my hotel.

If the taps of beer are sitting on the bar top and the bartender is standing in between the bar taps and the cold room behind them holding the kegs, then the beer is an “indirect pull”. The beer has to indirectly somehow get from the cold room and up to the front bar. This is often done by running beer lines under the floor, through the ceiling, or around the side of the bar, and up to the front taps. In cases this is over a big distant then we’d likely also use a CO2 pump.

Draught
Another not so obvious term relating to pouring beer is “draught”. Despite marketing whacking “Draught” on their bottles and cans, draught isn’t a beer style. It’s a method of pouring and only related to tap beer. The marketing idea behind using the word on labels is to try to get people to think that their canned and bottled beer tastes the same as it does coming out of the pub’s tap. Sorry to say though despite a marketing budget, given the temperature abuse in transportation and poor shelf handling, your can and bottle beer will still likely taste different to the fresh and well kept beer on tap at your local. So, what is draught anyway? Draught beer is just beer that has come from keg or barrel. Again “draught” relates to “pulling”, this time pulling through the beer lines (hoses of beer) regardless of if there is a pump involved or not.