No one wants to waste beer. Beer can be expensive and wasting it is costly. If you are a retailer selling beer it’s not just the cost, but the money you would make selling that beer.

Pay attention to your draft beer operations and keep an eye out for common mistakes and system problems.

Top Ten Beer Wasters

1. Pouring away foam from beer that is too warm. This common practice can be observed all over. Beer flowing into a tilted glass on one side and foam/beer pouring out of the other side to try to get a clean pour. If the beer isn’t cold enough then there are system problems that need to be addressed.

2. Over-pouring to eliminate a head. Some bartenders have a tendency to attempt to fill a glass right to the top with liquid. A foam head is a good, desirable attribute. Make sure beer is poured with a short ½ inch head. In a retail environment that ½ inch represents a lot of wasted beer and therefore money over the course of a full day.

3. Attempting to “pour through” dirty draft lines and faucets. If the beer lines or faucets are dirty, have them cleaned. “We always have to pour off a couple at the start of the day” is a statement heard a lot. A clean system will not need this type of treatment – it doesn’t work anyway.

4. Long draw lines filled with foam from empty keg. Long draw draft systems can hold ½ gallon of beer or more, per line. When a keg empties the line packs with foam. Foam is 25% beer – that’s a pint of beer right there in one line. If there are a lot of keg changes a “foam on beer” device in the system can prevent waste.

5. Flat beer that does not form a head. This is similar to beer waster number 2 above. Filling glasses to the top with liquid is a wasteful practice. If there is no foam to form a head then the beer may be flat. There are two main reasons why: System Pressure is too low; or the Wrong Gas Mix is being used. Find out more about these issues.

6. The beer is too cold. This common beer waster is seldom recognized because it’s hard to imagine that beer could be too cold. However, the colder the liquid is the more gas can be dissolved in it and the longer it will stay dissolved after pouring the beer. This will prevent head from forming so glasses can be filled right to the top. That additional “topping off” represents waste.

7. Beer line cleaning/flushing. This is a necessary evil. The beer has to be removed from the lines when they are cleaned and the only way to do that is to flush it out with water. Remember, long draw lines can hold a 1/2gallon or more. Multiply that volume by the number of lines you have and that adds up to a lot of wasted beer. You have my apologies.

8. Beer tastes bad and is dumped out. Beer can taste bad for several reasons including poor cleaning of the draft system and glassware, kegs can be past their prime and odors can penetrate vinyl beer lines (including foods in the cooler). If there is bad tasting beer find out the reason and stop the dumping – it’s serious waste.

9. Improperly stored and improperly cleaned glassware. Frozen or dirty glassware can cause foamy pours when the beer experiences turbulence caused by the uneven surface inside the glass. Foam is waste as seen in #1 above. Furthermore frozen or dirty glassware are two of the most common causes of bad tasting beer (see #8 above)

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10. System pressure that is too high. Too much pressure causes foam from over-carbonation and too much turbulence. High speed pouring can be accomplished using special equipment such as a Turbo Tap, but in normal operations overly high pressures cause waste. See foamy pours #1 above.

Each of these beer wasters can be observed, analyzed and corrected with the right know-how and information. Contact a draft service professional when any of these issues is found.

All things being equal the best response should be draft without question. Draft beer is usually fresher than bottled and domestic drafts generally are not pasteurized making the beer taste better. The problem with draft beer over the years has been the lack of care given to it once it has left the brewery.

Since it is not pasteurized this stuff must be refrigerated and it must be delivered for consumption as quickly as possible. Once the keg finally reaches the retail location where it will be served three things must be in place for you to enjoy that beer: (1) the temperature of the beer must be correct; (2) the lines that the beer passes through on the way to the glass must be clean; and (3) the glassware that the beer is served in must be properly cleaned.

Now any one of these three elements can ruin a good quality draft beer and each deserves its own article for discussion. Far too often all three of these elements are wrong – and that gives draft beer a bad reputation! I recommend challenging the manager of any establishment that fails. Because draft beer is way better than bottled when handled correctly and way more profitable to the bar or restaurant when served correctly. Don’t accept bad beer.

Feel free at anytime to comment on any location where you’ve had a bad beer.

Beervangelist