In the January 2010 issue of Bar Business Magazine, Zachary Rosen, Certified CiceroneTM discusses ways bar owners can maximize profit margin in draft beer service by educating and certifying their servers on best pouring practices and keg maintenance.
We’ve all seen it before: A geyser of foam rushes over the bartender’s hand as he attempts to pour a beer. Disgruntled, he opens the Kegerator door and looks at the pressure set. Cold air rushes out and is replaced by the warm ambient air, wasting energy and straining the cooler’s motor as it works to replace the new heat. He cranks the pressure down, thinking too much foam equals too much pressure. But this problem will persist; because improper pours can often be related to incorrect temperatures and not necessarily the pressure set.
This bar scene is quite common, and even I must admit to having fallen prey to following similar logic in my early days in the industry. But since those days of naiveté, my pursuit of beer knowledge has brought me full circle: I am now a Certified Cicerone™. Cicerone certification tests applicants at three different levels: Certified Beer Server, Certified Cicerone, and Master Cicerone. Each exam covers five different categories: beer service, beer styles, flavor evaluation, brewing process and ingredients, and beer and food pairing. The Cicerone program is only a few years old, and the first ever Master Cicerone exam took place just this past November. But the wealth of knowledge attained is timeless.
To further my education, and in preparation for my Certified Cicerone exam, I decided to attend Micro Matic’s Dispense Institute, where I became familiar with the enthusiastic and skilled staff at their facilities. Micro Matic is a supplier of draught beer equipment in over 120 countries throughout the world. Their goal as a company is to continually seek better ways to deliver quality draught beer and excellence in customer service, whether through their products or their educational offerings. The three-day course in which I enrolled trained industry members in the theory behind draft systems, covering proper installation and maintenance standards as well. Classes are held bi-monthly in four different locations around the country, in a warm setting with small class size, which encourages group interaction and participants to learn from their peers’ experiences in the industry as well.
Unfortunately, for many, the principles of draft dispensing and Kegerators remain cloudy. But Micro Matic has been trying to remove the mystery behind these systems by providing educational resources. Their Web site, for starters, offers articles, forums, videos, and even an online Dispense Institute flash program that includes many of the illustrations designed for the Dispense Institute manual.
“It took us, believe it or not, over a year to create just the manual [for the Dispense Institute] because we wanted to really use our own pictures and graphics, so we literally did everything from scratch,” says Tom Geordt, Director of Technical Services at Mirco Matic. In doing so, they were able to tailor a program that is designed to “make people aware of the easiest way to deliver the best beer at the faucet—how to install a beer system properly, the parts required to do that, and also how to maintain it all once that system is in place and working properly,” adds Geordt.
The number of industry professionals taking advantage of the Dispense Institute continues to grow. “The training department over the course of the last two years has touched some 4,000 industry professionals, which includes our on-site training as well as our in-house training,” says Geordt.
GETTING TECHNICAL
Let’s go back to the uninformed bartender in our introduction, ratcheting the pressure down on a foamy keg. Let’s look at what a Cicerone and Micro Matic education would do for him. I will dispense (with little foam) some of what I learned, and what your staff could gain as well.
To start, it is often best to leave the pressure alone and the cooler shut. Poorly maintained or old refrigerators may have trouble cooling and may need servicing. Employees opening the cooler too often may be a cause as well. That cold air rushing out as the pressure regulator is adjusted will warm the cooler and subsequently the beer. Too warm of a beer and it will foam excessively, leading to slow service and a waste of product. Too cold, and the beer will become over-carbonated, producing a small head and often leading to over pouring which means a loss of profit. The carbonation in an over-carbonated beer releases in the consumer’s stomach instead. This causes a full feeling and will lead to less beer consumption by the customer and a smaller bar tab.
Now that the bartender has set the regulator too low, the foaming problem will eventually fix, but only because the lowered pressure will pull out carbonation from the beer and flatten it; under-carbonation leads to over pouring, which turns into lost profits. This process may take days, but it will slowly alter the beer’s makeup and influence the flavor, which can turn off customers. The ideal serving temperature for beer is 38 degrees Fahrenheit, the target number at which draft systems are designed to operate. This temperature needs to be maintained from the keg all the way to the glass for a proper pour.
Remember: the air temperature in the cooler is NOT the same as the keg’s temperature. The easiest test to check the beer’s temperature is by keeping a glass of liquid containing a thermometer close to the kegs you have in the cooler or Kegerator. If the liquid in the cup is not at 38 degrees, then it may be time to get the temperature reset or the cooler serviced. However, the only way to test the true storage temperature of the keg is to withdraw the beer directly, using a picnic tap or test kit, and then testing its temperature.
Draft beer’s serving temperature is crucial for quality, and to many establishments, Kegerators are the best choice in terms of cost and size. Micro Matic Kegerators were the first to incorporate a glass rinse, which allows the server to give the glass a fresh rinse of water before the pour. This will help clean out any dust or other possible contaminates that could cause foaming or affect the beer’s ability to retain its head.
DRAFTING A PHILOSOPHY
While bottles can provide a convenient way to store a wide selection of beers, the freshest flavors and most profitable platform for serving beer remains the keg. A keg can provide, on average, 130 to 140 16-ounce beers (14 ounces of liquid with a ¾” head). At $3.00 a glass (and much more in major cities) and an average keg cost of $80.00, owners can realize a profit of $310-$340 per keg, with higher margin potential on craft and import beers. (The craft beer market has been growing, despite the efforts of the economy, and the allure of these specialty beers can draw in new interest, attract beer enthusiasts, and position your establishment uniquely in the market.)
A typical keg can withstand 30 years of service, in which time it will be refilled and distributed continually, ultimately serving over 20,000 pints out of a single barrel. Compare that to the arduous task of returning and recycling the 27,000 cans it would take to provide the equivalent volume of beer.
Ultimately, draft systems balance two factors: pressure and temperature. To dispense correctly, beer needs to be served at the ideal temperature and with the correctly applied pressure from the gas source. Several pieces of equipment can help keep these two variables balanced. A primary regulator is hooked to the CO2 tank, but this only sets one pressure to be applied to the whole system.
Meanwhile, each beer is designed with a specific level of carbonation and must have the correctly applied pressure to keep the carbonation levels constant. So what happens if two beers of different carbonation levels are being served? If this is the case, then a secondary regulator is required for each tap line in order to distribute the correct pressure to each keg. If only a primary regulator is used, then one or more of the kegs may have pouring problems and altered carbonation levels.
A foam on beer (FOB) detector is a small valve apparatus that shuts off flow to the line when a keg empties. This keeps the line full of beer and not foam, which can waste beer and profits when the foam must be purged from the lines. FOBs can drastically reduce waste between kegs and are absolutely necessary for long draw systems. Considering that 100 feet of beer line that moves ten kegs a week will waste about 23 pints of beer each week refilling, the cost of this equipment can quickly be reclaimed. In fact, Micro Matic has aptly named their FOBs “In-line Profit Maximizers (PRO-MAX)” to help emphasize the importance of this device in reducing waste and saving money.
Until bar staffs are better informed, education is crucial to sustain draft beer’s quality. While these systems are not horribly complex, they do require a little know-how and are too often disregarded as never being more complicated than a pull of a lever or a turn of a screw. Draft systems ultimately remain at the mercy of their users and caretakers; innovation and quality products can drive an industry forward, but if the workforce is unaware how to provide proper care, the technology will not be able to thrive.
Beer, like milk, is a living liquid and needs to be treated with even more care, as its carbonation and delicate flavors are far more susceptible to damage. The right equipment and upkeep of these systems can preserve a beer’s quality and deliver unparalleled flavors to the customer. With the help of companies like Micro Matic and the Cicerone program, bar owners can increase draft beer sales by utilizing education and implementing quality draft beer equipment in their marketplace.
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