Glossary · Serving
Gravity dispense
Also written straight from the barrel. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
Serving cider from a tap in the cask or box by gravity alone, without pump or applied gas. It is the traditional method for still farmhouse cider and the standard at cider festivals.
- Subject
- Serving
- Also written
- straight from the barrel
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Draught cider
Cider dispensed from a cask, keg or box rather than from a bottle or can. In British usage it also implies a serving format eligible for the reduced draught rate of alcohol duty.
Equipment
Cask
A wooden vessel of staves bound by hoops, bulging at the middle so it can be rolled and turned. Casks both store cider and shape it, admitting a slow ingress of oxygen through the wood.
Equipment
Bag-in-box
A collapsible plastic bag inside a cardboard carton, fitted with a tap. Because the bag collapses as the cider is drawn, no air enters, which makes it a good format for still, unpasteurised cider.
Serving
Hand pump
A manual suction pump on a bar that draws cider from a cask in the cellar. It agitates the cider slightly on the way up, which raises what carbonation there is.
Cider
Still
Containing no perceptible dissolved carbon dioxide. Traditional farm cider and Spanish *sidra natural* are still in the glass, though the latter is aerated by the way it is poured.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
CAMRA cider and perry standards
Campaign for Real Ale · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24. Registered for the consumer-campaigning vocabulary — "real cider", "full juice" — which is advocacy language rather than legal definition, and is recorded as such wherever CiderHQ uses it.