The turbo tap

This unique faucet was designed by an engineering student in the United States a few years ago. The application is designed for high-volume locations like sports arenas and stadiums. It fills a beer cup faster than anything on the market, but (here’s the kicker) you need to buy their cups. These cups have a hole in the bottom that is covered by a magnetic piece that allows you to fill the cup from underneath and then it seals the bottom once it is finished. Here’s my issue with this. The pouring head is constantly touching beer, and every time it comes in contact with air, hands or anything else, it is picking up bacteria. Sorry, I will gladly give up speed for quality and safety.

The infusion tower

Originally developed by the brewers at Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware, this unique draught tower was brought back to the market last year after ownership and design changes. The fascinating feature of this tower is that the publican is allowed to infuse a great variety of flavouring ingredients into a beer. This creates a virtually limitless amount of beer cocktails that can be poured. The issues are simple. The infusion chamber needs to be cleaned constantly. Also, the longer the ingredients stay in the chamber, the more intense the flavours become. This is a stunning invention but it is also a lot of work.

Advancement in quality beer

The real technological advancements are coming in draught system equipment. Years ago, draught beer was dispensed with air. Naturally, it was inexpensive but it also infused the beer with bacteria and flavours from the restaurant and surrounding area. We then started using carbon dioxide and have moved on to compressed gas blends that include nitrogen. Now, we are seeing advanced systems that blend carbon dioxide and nitrogen to ideal blend ratios that help to keep the beer alive in the keg while giving it enough push to get to the tap. Gas blenders are really the way to go for the future of draught beer. Not only can you create an ideal mixture of beer gas, but it will actually save you money.

FOB’s are very interesting little chambers that recognize when a keg is empty. These relatively simple devices shut the dispense system down so that the beer in the draught line remains intact and doesn’t turn into waste in the form of foam that sprays the customer or the bartender.

Beer lines may be the best piece of technology in recent years. We now have ‘barrier tubing’ available to carry beer from the keg to the tap. These ‘glass’ lined plastic beer lines keep bacteria, beer stone and protein from forming in the lines. Line cleaning is much easier with these and the trunk lines will last at least five times as long as the old poly tubing.

One last bit of advice that I could provide is: ‘If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

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About the author

Roger Mittag is the owner of Thirst For Knowledge Inc® and the founder of Prud’homme Beer Certification® and can be reached at [email protected] for a customized beer evaluation program.