Spile

A spile is a small wooden or metal peg used to control the flow of air into, and carbon dioxide out of, a cask of ale. Spiles can also be used to broach water from trees.

Ale use

Cask ale is served without externally supplied carbon dioxide or nitrogen. The idea that it is served "flat" with no bubbles at all, though, is a misconception. Properly conditioned cask ale contains bubbles of carbon dioxide generated by the natural action of the yeast living in the beer while it is transported and stored^1[›]. In fact, the yeast will actually produce more carbon dioxide than is required, and it is for this reason that the cask is vented through the spile hole in the shive.

Two kinds of spile are available. Initially, "soft" or porous spiles are used, made of open-grained softwood, bamboo, or harder wood with cuts in. These allow the excess gas to escape. Once the cellarman judges this process to be complete, a hard spile is inserted which does not allow any more gas out of the cask. These are made of harder wood (usually still technically "softwood", but denser and more solid than soft spiles). Plastic pegs intended for sealing shives are occasionally used as hard spiles.

During service, the spile must be removed to allow air in to replace the beer drawn off. Once the spile is reinserted enough gas will come out of solution to replace what was lost, but the amount of carbon dioxide available in the system - free or dissolved - is limited, so it is important that the spile is kept in as much as possible. This is one of several reasons for real ale's short shelf-life once a cask is opened - if too much carbon dioxide is lost, the beer will be flat. Typically, the beer will be good only for two to four days^2[›]; this short life is why it is important that a pub serving real ale have sufficient turnover for casks to be emptied while still at their best.

Other uses for spiles

Like many such older terms, the word spile has other local meanings. For example:

• Tapper,^[1] an implement used to tap any sort of tree, e.g. for birch sap, maple syrup, rubber tapping, palm wine from a toddy palm
• The iron or wood spigot driven into a sugar maple to produce maple syrup.^[2][3]
• At Indian Harbour in Nova Scotia, the shores on which fish processing "stores" were located were called spiles.
• A Spile is also a term used in boatbuilding to describe the means/actions which a builder uses to determine the shape of any curved piece needing to be fitted to a curved surface.
• A wooden stake or fence post.

In popular culture

A spile is utilized to obtain water in the novel Catching Fire and subsequent film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The spile consists of tube with one end sharpened and the other split. When pounded into a tree, a stream of fresh water flows from the tube. Most of the year, this is not consistent with the nature of trees, as water diffuses upward through very tiny capillary passages. When a tree is cut down, water does not flow out of the cut surface. The technique used in the movie would only work in early spring or late winter, when the watery sap runs high in the trees.

The taps that are placed in maple trees are placed into drilled holes and the resultant fluid is sap, not water.

See also

• keystone
• spigot

Notes

^ 1: Properly served, there should be no significant quantities of this yeast present in the beer as it is drunk. During the conditioning process, finings help to gather the yeast into clumps ("flocculation") which sink into the belly of the cask below the tap. Only if the cask is shaken, tilted too far, or served too early will the yeast find its way into the glass.
^ 2: Stronger beers will last longer, mostly because the increased alcohol content serves as a preservative. Nevertheless, they may be a little flat by the end of their life..

References

• Cellarmanship - Caring for Real Ale, 2nd Edition, 1992. Published by CAMRA. ISBN 1-85249-063-2