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New Drink Coming Soon...


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Discerning lager drinkers gird yer loins there's a new imported beer arriving soon on draught. This is in addition to Tennents and Budvar. Yes - just in time for what is predicted to be the coldest winter in 40 years... Baltika No.3 which is imported all the way from... err... doh... Russia.

baltika.jpg

Baltika has a 'super chilled' tap.

Not sure exactly when the gear will be installed, but hopefully within the coming week.

We already stock Baltika in bottles but those will cease once the draught product arrives.

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cleaning the fonts and pipes must take you guys forever! assuming you do it' date=' that is ;)

/x[/quote']

Oh yes, and for anyone interested in such matters...

Line cleaning is a very misunderstood process. It is necessary because despite the products being sterile and under CO2 gas, bacteria finds it's way into the lines via the taps and will live off any yeast that's adhereing to the line. This is very bad news because the effect is similar to not brushing your teeth... I've heard tales from brewery engineers about bars and clubs where the beer has stopped because the lines have become fully blocked - this supposidly takes about 1 year of neglect. They've cut open the lines which have been chocked solid with this slow moving stinking yellow slime, described as being like the runny cheese in macaroni but with the smell of bad breath.

There are only two reasons for keg beer to taste bad (real ale is different as it can go off for a number of reasons). Either the line cleaner has been left in the line too long, scouring the lines with bleach. This imparts a slightly musty, rough, off-bleach taste, and the only cure is to replace the lines. The other reason is dirty lines and this causes anything from flat beer, stinking beer, cloudy beer, solid matter in the beer, right through to poisoning. Even missing 1 week of line cleaning is noticably detremental to the taste of the beer.

***

We currently have 18 fonts, each with their own dedicated line, and 6 real ale pumps each with it's own line. The real ale lines are only 3m long but are 12mm bore whereas the beerlines are much longer but only have a 6mm bore. We clean the beerlines and a Wednesday morning, and the real ales whenever the casks finish, these usually last a week.

In order to clean a line you must first flush out all the beer. We waste approx 57 pints a week through this process. It costs us over 4000 per year to keep out lines clean once you factor in bleach and wages.

The line cleaning we use is the indicator (purple) type. This looks like blackcurrent Ribena, but depending on how dirty the line is will either go green, yellow, gray, white, clear, cloudy purple, or purple with bits floating in it. Once the lines are clean the bleach remains a sparkling clean purple. Unfortunately there is a common misconception among publicans that green is dirty and purple is clean, but things aren't that simple, hence some places only partially succeed in cleaning their lines.

We have fitted line ionisation devices commonly known as beerline conditioners. These pass a small electric charge round the line, which prevents any particles from clinging to the inside of the line. Without any bleach to feed on the bacteria grow much more slowly. We've had these devices fitted since the lines were new - we replaced them just after taking over the bar. It typically takes less 60-90mins to clean the lines. Due to the flood our lines had to be replaced again, and the beerline conditioners had to be refitted. In the interim week without the conditioners it took almost twice as long to properly clean the lines (and these were new lines remember). So the conditioners really do make a difference.

Interestingly cider lines technically do not require such frequent cleaning, but we still do ours once a week cos it doesn't add much to the task as they usually show up clean straight off. The Addlestones is a different kettle of fish, and does require weekly cleaning, although it's very easy to clean compared with say Belhaven or Guiness!

One thing we plan to do is to relocate our keg cellar directly under the bar counter thus reducing the volume of the lines, and hopefully shaving 3000 off our annual line cleaning costs.

***

We usually get nominated for pint of the year.

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i know that you silly sausage. i might pop in tomorrow (today now) anyway since i haven't been in for what seems like ages. :p

i fancy a pint of weihenstephan (did i spell it right?)

I think so - at least that's how I spell it... but I'm not sad enough to look it up on Google. Never fear I'm sure some 12 year old asswipe will be along soon to put us both bang to rights on the spelling :(

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Most 12 year olds these days are more concerned with causing trouble' date=' being cheeky and breaking stuff. I doubt they even have time for school these days...skiving bastards.[/quote']

Who said anything about school. No they are all concerned with using Google to make the rest of us look like tits. They certainly don't go around breaking stuff, most of them look so pale they've barely seen the light of day, and any colour on their cheeks just means they've got a CRT TV and not a plasma. They're all so blown up on Happy Meals that they're too fat to walk and have to been craned into a vehicle capable of supporting their bulk i.e. a 4x4 and karted the entire 600 yards to school and back again. Where they sit on their arses, eat chips, play with a mouse, txt each other, and have a mass asthma attack everytime they encounter a dog hair. No fuck the lot of them :swearing:

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Yes it arrived and we are dispensing. Needs a little adjustment because it's hard to pour right now, and we're still waiting for the correct glasses. Very cold, very fizzy (although it's so cold you don't notice), very strong, and very clean tasting. It's certainly plugged a gap! We've price4d it between Tennet's and Budvar. Oh - and I screwed up, turns out the draught version in a whopping 5.5%abv!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Baltika...

Tried it for the first time yesterday,after 2 pints I started seeing double,after 2 and a 1/2

I started getting very peckish for a Kebab,after 3 I came on here and wrote unintelligable shite,so you can bet I 'll be down for another pint soon.

Very tasty, just a bit on the strong side for an empty stomach.

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Tried it for the first time yesterday' date='after 2 pints I started seeing double,after 2 and a 1/2

I started getting very peckish for a Kebab,after 3 I came on here and wrote unintelligable shite,so you can bet I 'll be down for another pint soon.

Very tasty, just a bit on the strong side for an empty stomach.[/quote']

I know exactly what you means, I was on it on Friday night, also on an empty stomach and after 2 fairly rapid pints I started to feel quite drunk. I wasn't intending drinking but reading about George Best made me thirsty. I finished up after 6-7 pints (plus an absinthe, some UTC Arrak, and 2 Laphroigs) and entered a pahse of alcoholic psychosis. The hangover finally abated at 5.30pm Saturday. So on reflection I suspect this may not be the drink for me!

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  • 3 weeks later...

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