food sectionfood section
Beer plays a role in the culinary part of many cultures and is sometimes a part of dramatic productions, especially those involving adult characters. But when those productions have to be put on in front of children or on stages where alcohol is not permitted, actual beer might not be allowed. Instead, you can recreate the frothing glasses of your favorite brew with a few ingredients from a local grocery store and your audience will be none the wiser.
Draft beer, also known as draught beer outside of the United States, is beer that is contained in a pressurized keg or cask. In bars, glasses are filled with draft beer from a tap that is connected via pipes or tubes to the keg, often located beneath the bar. This storage method helps preserve the beer's flavor, but also makes it prone to foaming when served. There are a few different causes of foam, but fortunately all have solutions.
There are two ways to pull a beer and which you use depends on the style of tap you're using to dispense the beer. A barrel tap generally has a sparkler nozzle at the end of it. The sparkler is a nozzle with multiple tiny holes which aerates the beer during the pull. A traditional tap is a small tap and dispenses the beer much closer to the handle.
If you've consumed a carbonated drink, chances are that you've also experienced the annoyance of waiting for its foam to dissipate. Carbonated drinks such as cola, beer or champagne, tend to accumulate foam when poured due to the dissolved carbon dioxide or nitrogen contained in the drinks. The albumin, or protein, found in beer makes it especially prone to retaining a foam head for a longer period of time than other carbonated beverages. Several simple tricks reduce the foam in any carbonated drink.
Too much foam spewing from your beer tap can ruin your evening. Whether you are a bartender trying to serve local patrons, or just enjoying a keg or two at a tailgate party, eliminating excess foam from your beer tap is an absolute must. There are a few things you can do to prevent too much foam from clogging up your tap and lines. Sometimes you may just have to wait for the beer to settle, other times you may need to vent gas from the lines.
Almost everyone has seen a beer commercial where beer is poured from a tap and it has the perfect amount of foam sitting on top of the glass. While it would be nice if every pour from a tap looked like this, the reality is that there are many things that can go wrong with a keg of beer that will cause only foam to come out of the tap instead of beer. When this happens, there are several steps you can take in order to ensure a nice pour.
Beer foams when there is a sudden decrease of pressure, whether it's in a bottle, can or keg. The carbon dioxide dissolved in the beer turns to gas and forms bubbles that rise to the surface. Other substances in the beer can form an elastic skin around the bubbles as they rise so that the bubbles pile up at the top of the beer and create foam.
