What's the big firkin deal?

Well, Piper's Pub on the South Side has amassed a fleet of kegs or casks called firkins; built a system to properly store, cool and dispense from them special beer; and is to debut it late next week.

Some would say that if you haven't had this "cask-conditioned ale" or "real ale," you haven't really had ale.

Certainly, it's a special beer experience that you can't get everywhere, not even in Britain where it originated and once again, in places, is flourishing.

"We consider ourselves a pub in the true sense of the word and this just adds to that," says owner Drew Topping, who's been boning up on the way true British publicans traditionally serve true ales.

Piper's French-made firkins are basically small stainless steel kegs, but are designed for "real ale." That is, not ale that is pasteurized and filtered as is usually the case, but ale with yeast still munching on its sugars and creating the gas that is the bubbles (carbonation).

A la the good ol' days in Olde England and elsewhere, the "cask conditioned" beer is not dispensed with pressurized carbon dioxide gas, but pumped with a hand pump or beer engine. Since that means air gets inside the firkin, the beer must be consumed within a few days before it essentially spoils.

Which isn't usually a problem when fans are around.

A firkin (the term initially was a unit of volume meaning a quarter of a barrel) holds 9 Imperial gallons or 10.8 U.S. gallons (compared to a typical U.S. keg of 15.5 gallons).

Mr. Topping bought his own firkins so he can have them filled by brewers. Rather than pre-carbonating the beer, they'll prime it by adding additional yeast and/or sugars to do its "secondary fermentation" in the firkins.

This "live" unfiltered beer must be handled with much more care than typical kegged brew. The firkins must be kept cool on the way to the pub, where they'll rest on their sides for a few days cradled on racks in a cooler that keeps them at an optimum 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeast and other sediments must not be disturbed.

Mr. Topping and the three employees who are learning to be "cellarmen" will adjust the "spiles" that close the openings in the firkin, removing the soft spile that allows the excess gases to "vent" and pounding back in the hard one to stop that.

Once a cellarman, by sampling the carbonation and taste, determines that the beer has matured, it can be served.

As each pint of beer is pumped, spring-loaded mechanisms tilt the firkin gently so as to not stir up any sediment.

For the drinker, the most obvious differences from regular draft beer is that cask beer is not as cold nor as carbonated.

But it's not warm and flat, Mr. Topping stresses, and even a beer you're familiar with will seem subtly different -- better in many cases, he believes. "What it's going to do is raise the flavor profile."

Interesting, that flavor profile is a moving target. As the beer continues to condition inside the firkin, the flavors will evolve.

As Mr. Topping puts it, "It's good on the first day, peaks on the second day, and is good on the third day." After that, the beer will have to be discarded -- if there's any left, which he doesn't expect to often happen.

The plan is to be dispensing at least one stout or porter and one ale at all times, with another beer ready to go on a third pump, and at prices similar to the pub's two-dozen mostly imported drafts. Growlers, or jugs, of real ale will be available to go.

Mr. Topping is taking pains to do all this based on the guidelines of the Campaign for Real Ale, or CAMRA, a group that started the movement in England in the 1970s and now has some 84,000 members.

Real ale is too much work to replace regular draft, but more bars in this country, too, are serving it, as more craft brewers are distributing it at least occasionally. Alex Hall's Web site cask-ale.co.uk ranks Pennsylvania No. 1 in the United States for real ale outlets.

You can try real ale at area brewpubs including the Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville, which always has one cask on (injected with a blanket of carbon dioxide gas so the beer lasts longer). Rivertowne Pour House in Monroeville always has one on, too. John Harvard's in Wilkins doesn't serve cask in the summer but will resume in the fall.

You also can find the occasional cask at good beer bars.

Last month, D's SixPax & Dogz in Regent Square held a "Firkin Friday" at which it tapped "on the bar" a firkin of Heavy Seas Loose Cannon Hop 3 Ale from Baltimore's Clipper City Brewing.

Fat Head's Saloon on the South Side, they've also held firkin Fridays. The next one is May 23, when a representative from Colorado's Oskar Blues will tap a firkin of Dale's Pale Ale. Owner Glenn Benigni says they always have a keg-conditioned real ale on.

"As one kicks, we put on another," he says, noting that only a "handful of breweries" will ship real ale this way ("The Rogue Chocolate Stout seems to move the best for us") and a few other bars put such kegs on.

But no place locally is going into real ale as big as Piper's, which is hitting its 10th anniversary this year after having to close and remodel after water pipes broke in February 2007.

Offering cask brews perfectly fits the place's Scottish theme and Eurocentric clientele.

But in the real ale spirit of freshness, Mr. Topping plans to focus on local ones, starting with brews from East End Brewing Co. in Homewood, whose owner, Scott Smith, gave him the idea to try real ale in the first place.

Says Mr. Smith, "He's just gone nuts with this ... nuts in a real ale kind of way."

Mr. Topping says he'll also offer brews by Sean McIntyre, who offers a cask choice at North Country Brewing in Slippery Rock, Butler County.

Piper's also will bring in some brews from Eastern Pennsylvania and New York City, where cask beer is increasingly popular.

Expect to see more firkins elsewhere around these parts.

At 6 p.m. on May 30, the Sharp Edge Beer Emporium in Friendship will be tapping a firkin of Bell's (Kalamazoo, Mich.) Two Hearted Ale. Hart Johnson says, "This will be the first time we've run an honest firkin in well over 10 years. This will be a litmus test for us. If it does well, we will probably start doing them more often."

You can also experience firkins at "real ale" festivals such as the one held last month at Barley's in Columbus, which included firkins from the Church, East End and John Harvard's.

You could head to the Brazen Head in Brooklyn, N.Y., which always has at least two cask-conditioned brews on.

This weekend, it opens up to 30 cask beers for its Spring Cask Festival (brazenheadbrooklyn.com).

One famous event not too far away is "Friday the Firkinteenth," the 17th of which will be held at Philadelphia's Grey Lodge Pub on June 13. They pump out 13-plus (with emphasis on the plus) firkins (visit greylodge.com).

Mr. Topping says he'd like to hold his own real ale festival -- perhaps as early as this summer -- at Piper's, which is expanding into the building next door.

He also plans to serve real ale at this year's Steel City Big Pour.

He and his colleagues have practiced with brews from Mr. Smith, but expect it to take a while to pour it as smooth and clear as it should be.

"We're in this together," he says, meaning beer drinkers, too. "We're both learning at the same time."