Draught Beer - History of Draught

History of Draught

In 1691, an article in the London Gazette mentioned John Lofting, who held a patent for a fire engine: "The said patentee has also projected a very useful engine for starting of beer, and other liquors which will draw from 20 to 30 barrels an hour, which are completely fixed with brass joints and screws at reasonable rates".

In the early 20th century, serving draught beer from pressurised containers began. Artificial carbonation was introduced in the United Kingdom in 1936, with Watney’s experimental pasteurised beer Red Barrel. Though this method of serving beer did not take hold in the U.K. until the late 1950s, it did become the favoured method in the rest of Europe, where it is known by such terms as en pression. The method of serving beer under pressure then spread to the rest of the world; by the early 1970s, draught beer was almost exclusively beer served under pressure.

In Britain, the Campaign for Real Ale was founded in 1971 to protect unpressurised beer. The group devised the term real ale to differentiate between beer served from the cask and beer served under pressure. The term real ale has since been expanded to include bottle-conditioned beer.