peebee
Out of Control
... As close to a pub real ale as you get unless you go down the cask and cask breather route. ...
... You need to drink within 2 weeks.
Exactly. It's what I did all that work for. I wasn't going to accept those limitations.
I covered both "breathers" and the limited life of many "cask-conditioned" techniques at home (including polypins).
I've just finished one hand-pumped brew made last October. I've still got a hand-pumped brew on made last December; that pump was flushed once in that time when the keg was changed over (I make 40L batches split into two 20L kegs). The problem with both beers wasn't that they'd deteriorated, weren't ever like "pub real ale", or had gone totally flat, but that the styles (British "running" bitters) were never meant to be drunk as matured as that.
A lot of home-brewers treat their hand-pumps as, somewhat inconvenient, novelties. It doesn't have to be like that.