I had to lookup "indomitable"! What came back was "impossible to subdue or defeat", which I suppose might be accurate (not enough sense to understand when he's being put down!).
The question is answered in my "treatise", in fact it was the reason for me writing the "treatise", and trying to rationalise the subject by coming up with the very subjective "perceived as flat" idea.
Why are breathers only expected to extend life expectancy of beer and not preserve it? Breathers maintain zero relative pressure over the beer which will then retain a bit less than 1 volume of CO2 dissolved the beer. But it takes a while (maybe weeks) for the CO2 volumes in the beer to reach equilibrium with it's surroundings that are 100% CO2 at zero relative pressure (relative to air or atmospheric pressure). If the cask is open to the atmosphere the surroundings are only 0.04% CO2 and the beer will eventually drop to that level if left long enough, but would go off long before then. If not using a breather the cask must be "hard spiled" when not serving to slow down the process of CO2 loss.
Most people (amongst "Real Ale" drinkers that is) perceive the beer as "flat" before the beer reaches 1 volume of dissolved CO2 (depending on beer type). Hence I recommend LPG regulators which will maintain up to 1.1 volumes of CO2 dissolved in the beer indefinitely.
That answers one question, but what of the next: Why does beer become "sub-prime" after a handful of weeks? Some beers were intended to be drunk "fresh" ("mild" to use the arcane term) and not "matured" ("stale" being the arcane term). Because the beer is normally drunk fresh, it's matured state (when the yeast has fully attenuated the beer, and other more subtle changes) isn't what is expected (the beer is "stale" in the modern meaning of the term), and amplified because it is served warmer than "keg" and considerably less carbonated than "keg". The worst examples I've had are Marsden's Pedigree clones with high sulphate (gypsum) content; the documented features of gypsum kick in after about three or four weeks ("like sticking your tongue on a well used blackboard"), and as an opposite example an 18th century style "Porter" (hand-pumped) which was going well after a year (I had a lot of it to get through!).
Exclusively "keg" drinkers don't have these issues, but neither do they get to appreciate the plus side. Poor devils.
Once-upon-a-time some of this sort of talk was heresy to CAMRA members and I'd be burned at a stake for saying it.
