Bar taps

[Stu H]

Hey dudes,

I'm in the middle of pricing out a bar fit-out, and have been wondering about taps.

As a homebrewer, I own a keg system and have rigged up fonts and the like before to my kegerator, so I'm somewhat familiar to the whole thing.

I'm struggling to understand why it's made out that taps in a retail bar situation are so expensive... Maybe I'm missing a part of the puzzle? As far I can tell you need:

Chiller room (which I can get 2nd hand)

Refridgeration unit (2nd hand)

CO2 tank (hire?)

Regulator(s) ($120)

Beer line (cheap)

Beer towers ($200 US for a triple faucet, each)

Am I missing some part of the puzzle? I should probably mention I quite like the recycled look, and find those big shiny tap systems you see in "swill" bars pretty ugly....

Shit - you can even get beer engines from ebay in the UK for about 40 pounds a piece.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Hugh Grierson]

Hey Stu,

Carefull with those US sourced beer towers, I bought one and it was Chinese shit, you want a brand like micromatic/perlick from Europe or The US.

Watch trade me you can buy taps or go to hoshizaki lancer.

If you can find someone to fill co2 and own your own bottle its way better than those BOC anuses.

Dont get a chinese reg.

[Stu H]

Hey Hugh,

That's great advice. I'll snaffle around for those brands. I've got a micromatic regulator at home and I've never had a problem with it.

I've also got one of those sweet converted CO2 bottles from Pressure Check in Grey Lynn... Though I'm sure I'll need a larger bottle for the bar.

[Hugh Grierson]

Nah a smallish bottle from pressure check will last you ages, to give you an idea, one of those will do a month+ at hopscotch powering its mighty 12 taps..

[Kelly Milligan]

I suppose something to consider is also insulating the beer line which would probably be significantly more expensive than the line itself.

If you're only moving the beer from a fridge to the taps directly above it's probably sweet as, but when you're moving beer from the cellar up to the bar I think that's a different story. Like balancing a homebrew keggerator times 10. Extra pressure needed to push the beer through so much line, and small shifts in temp during transit leading to excessive foaming/flat beer out of the tap. This is only from what I've read though! ;)

[Stu H]

Yeah I've read about some systems which have glycol lines running in parallel to the beer lines... Not 100% sure it's necessary (can be convinced though).

Probably be serving mostly ales, rather than "Lion Ice" too - Surely if I kept the beer chiller really cold, it'd warm up to serving temp over the beer line run?

[Evan Davies]

Ive got a 2 tap cobra style kicking about the shed which I would let go for the right money, black in colour and in reasonable nick, just dont see myself getting brave enough to mount it in my bartop.

[Stu H]

Ah good on ya Evan, I'll fling ya an email.

[Kelly Milligan]

I think that if the temp increased to serving temp while in the line you'll end up just getting whole pints of foam and stuff. It's that temp change that causes heaps of the dissolved CO2 to come out of solution. I think ideally you want as little temp change as possible while it's in the line

[Stu H]

Ah yep true, that makes sense Kelly.

[Kelly Milligan]

There was a really good Brewing Network podcast on kegging, they specifically talk about kegging homebrew of course but there's quite a lot of talk about 'how it works in bars' when it comes to balancing/insulating beer lines n stuff :) http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/624 Think it was this one, however there may also be a Sunday Session that covered it

[Stu H]

Cool, I listened to that one, that's more on basic keg cleaning etc. I'll check out the Sunday Sesh tonight.

[bart]

Hi Stu, yeah I agree it's strange how bar owners sometimes make a big deal out of how expensive it is to get taps... Maybe there's some kind of rip-off deal going on through the big alcohol companies whereby they make the tap fit out cost lots of money, you know those contracts that bars enter into to serve only one kind of beer. It always boggled my mind why a bar would be so pussy whipped to agree to only sell one brand of beer... fark that, keep it indie!!