Franconian Beer Message Board

Re-dispensed Beer
Posted by barryriley on 2013-03-19 08:07:42
I don't know if the autovac system is the same as that used in my youth. To be honest, I never investigated the way it operated because I didn't have to go into the cellars of pubs - that was the landlord's job. Well, not quite true, in one pub, I did have to haul up bottles of light and brown ale from the cellar to the bar but that was about it. I just assumed that beer ran back from the drip trays by gravity. Although I wouldn't be a great fan of the system now, it wasn't the most unhygenic thing in the world pre-1970! Also, mild went into mild trays and bitter into bitter trays - they were well separated. I can tell you that customers were pretty discerning about the quality of the beer - there were so many pubs and different breweries, that it was easy to change. Once a pub got a bad name for its beer, it took a lot of shifting. Also, landlords stayed a long time and were usually pretty good at cellar work. Yes, I'm think of myself as a Northerner, whatever that may mean, and, yes, I like beer with a head on it, though I had to get used to serving (and drinking) flat pints as my pubs were in the west country (Bath/Bristol). And there is a difference between using sparklers (ok) and swan necks (boo). The old taps were shaped like a letter L with the short side (1 to 2 inches from memory) being the exit bit. This made it nearly impossible to put it into the glass and we were definitely discouraged from doing so, even in my later years (mid 1980s) in the pub trade. I absolutely deplore the practice of putting the swan neck half way down the glass and squirting beer in this way. It seems to me to be most unhygenic (do bar staff always use new glasses? No, some customers demand their old glass to be used. Do publicans always sterilise the swan neck? I don't know but suspect not). Invariably, beer ends up running down the outside of the glass (absolutely deplorable) and you end up with a big head, which, when left to settle, usually means a short measure. To be continued!