In Great Britain, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) revived the demand for cask-conditioned beer, and today, it’s not uncommon for craft breweries to offer a cask ale in their tasting room. You can pull this off at home using a corny keg for conditioning, but how should you serve it? Like the pros, you can either elevate the keg and use gravity, or you can use a beer engine to pump the beer.
Beer engines typically cost well over $500, but you can save most of that money by building your own based around a hand pump designed for a sink in an RV or camper. While these devices are intended for potable water, I’ve been unable to nail down whether their plastic parts are FDA-certified as food safe. Personally, I’m not concerned, but if you are, this may not be a good project for you.
Let’s first take a look at a fairly simple version that will give you the beer engine experience and then talk about how to improve the aesthetics.