How A Soda Fountain Works

Brewers Association January Power Hour – Draught Beer Quality for Retailers

Thursday, January 22, 2015 – 1:00 pm Eastern; 12:00 noon Central; 11:00 am Mountain; 10:00 am Pacific

Topic:
Draught Beer Quality for Retailers

Speakers:
Neil Witte, Training and Technical Support Manager, Duvel USA, Boulevard Brewing Co. and Brewery Ommegang
Matt Meadows, Director of Field Quality, New Belgium Brewing Company
Kevin Reed, Director of Brewing Operations, Rock Bottom Breweries, CraftWorks Restaurants and Breweries, Inc.

Join us for our first Power Hour of 2015 as three draught quality experts take us on a tour of the Brewers Association’s newest resource, Draught Beer Quality for Retailers. These experts will present the four major sections of the publication, highlighting key takeaways in each:
> Key considerations and components: What should your system look like?
> Proper operation of your draught system Draught system cleaning and
> maintenance Case studies and economics of line cleaning

We’ll also discuss the genesis of this new retailer-focused publication from earlier work done by the BA’s Draught Beer Quality Subcommittee, along with some of the quality issues we face as an industry.

PLEASE NOTE: This Power Hour is NOT restricted to BA members only and brewers are encouraged to invite their distributor and retailer customers to participate. There is no charge for non-member participation. Power Hour Primer
Register online by January 21

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Draught Beer Quality for Retailers

Retailers play a critical role in preserving the great flavor and aroma in beer created by brewers. Great beer in a consumer’s glass is no accident – beer must be handled with care at retail. Draught beer systems commonly pour a wide range of brewers’ and suppliers’ beer, so everyone has an interest in keeping great beer great – brewers and wholesalers, retailers and consumers.
Draught Beer Quality for Retailers, a new publication from the Brewers Association Draught Beer Quality Subcommittee, is intended to help retailers consistently pour great beer and preserve profits thru industry accepted best practices. When handled properly from brewery to bar to glass, draught beer delivers what many consider to be the freshest, most flavorful beer available.

Draught Beer Quality for Retailers can be downloaded free at draughtquality.org.

Printed copies can be ordered on the Brewers Association store for a nominal charge

Matt Meadows, Brewers Association Draught Beer Quality Subcommittee Chair
Ken Grossman, Brewers Association Technical Committee Co-Chair
John Mallet, Brewers Association Technical Committee Co-Chair
Chris Swersey, Brewers Association
Chuck Skypeck, Brewers Association

Liquid volume in a dispense line

The inner diameter of the tubing (ID) determines the liquid contents:

3/16” ID = 1/6 oz/ft
1/4” ID = 1/3 oz/ft
5/16” ID = 1/2 oz/ft
3/8” ID = 3/4 oz/ft

CO2 Consumption in a Brewery

A barrel is 4.2 cubic feet. So at sea level and 70 deg. F a 5 barrel tank will have 21 cubic feet of gas in it when the gauge reads 0 psi. The volume of gas required to take that tank up to 14.7 (1 atmosphere) will be another 21 cubic feet.

In other words, the volume of gas used (assuming no waste) is 4.2 cubic feet per atmosphere of pressure. The math looks like this: number of barrels x 4.2 x atmospheres = total volume of system. Remember that when the gauge reads 0 at sea level the pressure is already at 1 atmosphere.

Source: Dan @ McDantim

Brewers Association Updates Draught Quality Information for Retailers

The US Brewers Association has recently updated the retailer section of their website with incredible resources for retailers that serve draught beer.  This resource is an excellent opportunity for draught service agents to update their knowledge.

Brewers Association Retailer Resources

Draught Quality Manual

The 33 Best Beer Bars in the USA

Any bar worth its pretzel salt has at least a beer or two at the ready. These are not those bars. These are bars for serious beer people: places where home brewers flock for inspiration and where the beer world’s best artisans roll out their experimental and hard-to-find suds. You’re not going to find breweries on here (we’re looking for a diversity of product), or necessarily bars with the most beers (we went for quality over quantity). Anyway, enough small talk. Here are the 33 best beer bars in the US. Slainte, pass the pretzels, and — as always — let us know what we missed in the comments:

Read the full article at the Huffington Post

ISBT Guidelines for Purity

Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless, noncombustible gas, liquifiable to a heavy, volatile, colorless liquid. The function of CO2 in beverages is to provide effervescence, some acidity and some protection against microbiological growth without contributing any off-appearances, off-odor, off-taste, or undesirable levels of trace impurities. However, CO2, is obtained as a co-product from the manufacture of various chemicals, from the thermal decomposition of carbonates during the production of lime, from the combustion of carbonaceous material, from fermentation processes, and from gases found in natural springs and wells. Thus, carbon dioxide must undergo effective purification to be considered suitable for its intended use as a direct food additive in beverages. Gas suppliers must identify, measure and control the levels of trace impurities in the purified CO2, and similarly, carbon dioxide users have a responsibility to take appropriate steps to ensure that suppliers have met this responsibility.

The International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Guidelines have been prepared to provide guidance on the key characteristics for the quality and purity of carbon dioxide used in beverages. These guidelines are also intended to provide assistance to carbon dioxide suppliers and users in achieving compliance with applicable international regulatory standards.

Continue reading at Food Safety Magazine

CGA issues liquid nitrogen safety alert

The Compressed Gas Association (CGA) is again seeking to bring attention to the hazards of liquid nitrogen in the food and beverage industry.

The association has today issued a safety alert, Hazards of Liquid Nitrogen in the Food and Beverage Industry, (CGA SA‐25).

The alert was originally released in 2013 in response to a report of severe injury to a woman in England (UK) who consumed a drink that contained liquid nitrogen and is being re-released in response to a report of a similar incident that occurred recently in Miami, US.

The safety alert should be read by owners, operators, and employees of restaurants, bars, and other establishments where liquid nitrogen is used in food and beverage preparation and consumption.

The safety alert is free and may be copied and distributed.

Comment

A number of alerts and calls to action have been made concerning the use and portrayal of gases in fashionable food and beverages in recent years.

Indeed, the Chief Executive of the British Compressed Gas Association (BCGA), Doug Thornton, has previously said to gasworld, “I am critical of anything or anyone that tries to encourage others to play with gases, with little understanding of the hazards of cryo temperatures, pressure or asphyxiation potential.”

“And anything that encourages the public to track it down is terrible news…putting liquid nitrogen or solid CO2 in drinks is an extremely bad idea.”

Source: Gasworld

CGA Alert: HAZARDS OF LIQUID NITROGEN IN THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRY

Warning About Liquid Nitrogen in Cocktails

A official warning about liquid nitrogen in cocktails was issued Monday by the Food Standards Agency of the United Kingdom.

Her Majesty’s government went public with the warning after virtually every news outlet in the UK had made much of the same sad story.

A young woman out celebrating her 18th birthday at Oscar’s wine bar in Lancaster city center did not know that you nurse a cocktail, especially one still smoking from being prepared with liquid nitrogen. Instead, she apparently drank it too quickly.

It was not long before Gaby Scanlon from Heysham, Lancashire was feeling breathless, her stomach hurting.

By 11 p.m. last Thursday, doctors at the Lancaster Royal Infirmary had found her stomach was perforated, and they immediately operated to remove most of it.

Without the emergency surgery, the young woman would have most certainly died.

Continue reading at: Food Safety News