Glossary · Serving
Hand pump
Also written beer engine, handpull. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
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.
- Subject
- Serving
- Also written
- beer engine, handpull
In more detail
A beer engine is a suction pump: the handle lifts a piston that draws cider up from a cask in the cellar, typically half a pint per stroke. Nothing is pushed by gas, which is the distinction that matters — a cask served by hand pump is served at whatever condition the cider generated for itself, and the pump adds a little agitation on the way up that raises what carbonation is there into a light head.
Whether that suits cider is a real disagreement rather than a settled question. A sparkler — the perforated nozzle used on the end of the swan neck in the north of England — knocks more gas out of solution and builds a tight head, which flatters some beers and strips a still traditional cider of the modest condition it had. Most cider served this way is drawn without one, and a great deal of traditional cider is not pumped at all but drawn straight from the cask by gravity.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Serving
Gravity dispense
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.
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
Keg
A sealed pressurised container for dispensing cider under applied gas, as distinct from a cask, which is vented and served by gravity or hand pump.
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.