When you’re building up your restaurant or bar business, there are a number of things that you’ll be thinking about that range from the technical to the aesthetic to the mundane. On the technical side, your draft beer system should be one of your primary considerations. A well-designed draft beer system will deliver superior taste and quality, and keep your patrons coming back for more.
When you’re building your ultimate draft beer system, the main things that you’ll need to think about are temperature and space. Specifically, the space where you’ll store your kegs, and how far it is from the space where you’ll actually be dispensing your beer. This one simple question determines what type of cooling system you need – and cooling systems are at the heart of making a draft beer system successful.
The two main types of cooling systems are Air-Cooled systems and Glycol-Cooled systems. Each one is designed to keep your beer at a stable, cold temperature as it travels along the beer lines from the refrigerated keg to the tap where it’s finally served. If the distance between your keg refrigeration unit and your dispense point is relatively short, then an Air-Cooled system should work well for you. If your dispense point is in a remote location greater from your keg refrigeration room, then you’ll need a Glycol-Cooled system to keep your beer consistently cold.
Once your perfectly cooled beer has reached the tap, often called a faucet, it’s time to think about the taps themselves. Then the lines that the beer just traveled through and the hardware that connects the lines to the keg and the tap. Specifically, are they clean? Next to temperature, cleanliness is the second most important factor in making sure that your beer tastes great once it’s served. As you establish your draft beer system, make sure that it’s spotless. Then set up a regular schedule to clean your beer lines and hardware. In general, cleaning your beer lines every two weeks is a good idea to maintain the taste and quality that the brewer first intended.
A proper cooling system that’s set up for your space and a regular schedule for cleaning your beer lines are two cornerstones of having a successful bar or restaurant business. With perfectly cold beer and a brewery-fresh taste, your clients will keep coming back for more!
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