Now that organizers have the green light to organize their events, you as a brewer have to figure out the best possible way to get your beer there. At events, there are often rules regarding how the visitors should consume the drinks. Increasingly we are seeing that hard cups will be obligatory, which is why draught beer is the best solution. But what is the best way to serve draught beer nowadays and what are the challenges?

The experience of drinking beer, starts with a perfect pour

Serving beer perfectly at an event depends on even more factors than with a permanent installation. The conditions are a lot more variable and often the infrastructure is built for a one-off event. Events are often held outdoors, which means you have to deal with much greater differences in temperature than you would indoors. When kegs of beer are delivered a day before an event, there is often no capacity to store all the kegs in a refrigerator. The differences in outdoor temperature will affect the quality. Moreover, most events take place in the summer, which means that the outdoor temperatures can be high. There must be strong beer coolers at the bar in order to be able to pour a good draught beer at all. When large volumes of beer are sold, few coolers that can keep up when connected to warm kegs.

How do you keep beer cool at an event?

As an event organizer or brewer, the biggest nightmare is that your beer is not cold when it comes out of the tap. Not only will you disappoint the festival visitors who will be served warm beer, but beer that is too warm foams enormously and is therefore very difficult to tap.

When beer is delivered to an event in an event tank, the built-in cooler of the tank keeps the beer at a constant perfect temperature. This preserves the quality of the beer. You can be assured that the coolers at the bar are only needed to slightly cool and calm the beer. As a result, there will never be a capacity problem with the coolers and the beer can be tapped easily and with the perfect froth. Since the beer is easy for the bar staff to tap, there will be a lot less loss, which means that the turnover will ultimately be higher and the crowd will get to enjoy delicious cold beer.

Efficient and cost-effective

There are even more factors that can influence the efficient pouring and quality of beer at an event. The delivery of beer can be done via keg, an event tank or a tap truck. For the lifting and changing of kegs, personnel are required, and beer is lost each time a keg is changed. The great thing about an event tank or tap truck is that there is no need to change anything, due to the large quantities. This means you need less manpower and there is no loss of beer during the change.

When changing a keg, the disadvantage is that the flow of tapping is interrupted. As a result, no beer can be tapped or sold during the changeover. A tank almost never needs to be changed, if at all, so a constant flow is maintained and the sale of the beer can continue. The flow aspect also comes into play when you have to bridge the distance from the keg to the bar. With a keg, the flow of the beer comes through CO2 (carbon dioxide). Tank beer works on air pressure and kegs on CO2. The pressure of beer is used to push the beer through the beer lines to the bar. To do so, the pressure needs to be higher than the total resistance of the beer line and draught beer installation. The length and diameter of the beer line determine the resistance. The further away the bar, the higher the total resistance will be.

Oversaturation

How do you bridge a great distance with beer at an event?

Sometimes large distances have to be bridged at events, which requires a lot of pressure. With a keg, the Co2 directly enters and mixes with the beer. In contrast, tanks have a bag inside called an inliner. This inliner contains the beer and the beer is pushed out by applying air pressure to the outside of the inliner. Unlike kegs, tank beer does not use CO2. To cover great distances when using kegs, you need a lot of pressure, and thus a lot of CO2. But when too much CO2 is added to the beer, oversaturation occurs and the beer starts to absorb this CO2. The whitepaper below explains how to bridge great distances with a beer line without getting oversaturation.

High-quality draught beer at an event

Besides packaging and storage, there are several other factors that influence the overall quality of the beer you serve at an event. To support you in serving the best possible version of your beer, We have summarised all factors that affect brewery fresh beer, in a whitepaper. We hope it will be your guide while optimizing your beer quality. Download your copy of High-quality draught beer at an event Whitepaper here.