A little more than a week ago I received an invitation from Josh Solomon, Director of Sales for US Beverage Net, to visit their offices in downtown Syracuse.  Funny thing is I’ve walked by their building for the last 5 years and was finally able to get in and check it out.  The building was vacant for a number of years and they have been one of the new tenants, remodeling their floor to include a demo bar, conference rooms and a bunch of offices.  But I’m not here to talk about real estate, I’m here to talk about beer.

As a quick overview, US Beverage Net has a patented process for measuring the flow of beer through keg lines and relays the information into a web-based user interface.  The user interface allows managers, brewers and business executives to monitor real-time statistics about what brews are selling, track innovatory and beer temperature.   The video below is quick peek at how the system works:

The system allows managers to see how much beer is being sold with the information from the registers at the bar against the actual beer that flows through the beer lines.  Innovatory is tracked in real time and allows managers to know the status of kegs on tap.  Over time, information is collected so that larger bars and beer operations can produce reports to show trends in purchasing, beer choices and sales.  This is really precise measurement where most bars and brew pubs rely on simply lifting kegs and quick counts.

Now beer is an interesting asset for a bar.  While we (beer geeks) can really see the value in tracking the beer flow on a high end beer like Chemey, most people in the bar/restaurant service industry see beer as a low-cost, high profitability product.  This can easily lead them to ask “why should I care?” – I have to say, when I first learned of US Beverage Net I asked myself the same thing.

So what makes this valuable to customers?  After talking with Josh, I’ve learned that they’ve found a few hot-spots for customers and have an enticing opportunity for future growth.  First, restaurants with multiple locations that see a large volume of beer flow through their lines can quickly realize the value of tracking “beer loss” (includes everything from people who waste beer that is foaming by leaving the tap open to overly friendly staff that like to treat their friends).  It allows for accountability and in some cases, US Beverage Net was able to identify 20% loss of beer and, with some basic review of staff and practices, were able to get the losses down to 2%.

Now while it’s easy to see how hundreds lines with beer flowing inefficiently can lead to quick turn around on investment dollars, but how can this help a brew pub?  Empire Brewing Company is currently using the system and brewer Tim is able to accurately monitor inventory so he can plan out brew sessions, asses the effectiveness of recipes with sales information, and do all this from the comfort of his home.  The web-based user interface has created a situation where he can pick and chose the time he needs to spend in the bar so he doesn’t have to walk into the coolers picking up the kegs every night to monitor supply.

Finally, they’ve got some interesting prospects for the future.  US Beverage Net has recently signed on with a few distributors.  Now this is interesting because they can provide access to distributors to have a real-time view of inventory at bars and restaurants.  This can save them man hours, gas and increase efficiency of the beer distribution process.  There is also the possibility  for US Beverage Net to, as they build their client base, compile information for brewers and the beer industry to provide an immediate snapshot of consumer reaction to beer in the market.

Over all, the upside of this product is great.  It’s especially attractive given the current economic climate and everyone’s desire to stretch every penny.  This quote from Jake Wright of Quaker Steak and Lube says a lot:

“We have had a FULL return on our investment for the installation and a full year of fees from just ONE busy night, moving from a variance of 20% the week before we notified staff to just 3% the week after. The system worked from day one, the support from the Bevnet team was immediate when needed and most importantly the cost was amazingly low. No hassle, easy to use, low cost and immediate ROI.”

Syracuse is a great beer town and US Beverage Net is a great beer company using innovation to help modernize the industry we support.  Cheers.

UPDATE – Found this story online

One thing to note is that while I did buy a lot of new parts, I had a 20lb CO2 tank and most of my ball valves already from my previous kegerator.  Here is a quick overview of my costs:

• Freezer – $220
• 4way manifold (also prevents backflow) $61
• Refrigerator Thermostat $58
• 4 Perlick taps (used on ebay) $113
• 4  four inch shanks with barbs attached $58
• 13″ Drip tray $50
• Odds and ends hoses $35
• two ball locks (remember, I already had 3 beers on tap so I had some parts)
• Mat for the floor of the freezer $9

For anyone familiar with kegging and beer flow, I used 3/16 hose at 5″ for each tap to minimize foamy beer.  Here is how I came up with this:

1. Beer line temp: 38-40f
2. Keg pressure (psi): 12-15
3. volumes of CO2: 2-3 on most beers
4. beer line ID: 3/16
5. Rise to tap: 1′
6. beer line temp: cold

Here is how it works out: 5 ‘ Length = 12psi(1′rise x.5)-1)/R (line resistance)=2

I know it’s a little confusing, but if you Google line resistance/ beer line length, there are a lot of great resources.  Every situation is unique so I don’t want anyone to think they should just copy what I’m doing.

To finish the whole thing off I painted it with white extra-glossy indoor/outdoor paint.  I had considered finishing the wood and doing some fancy stuff, but at the end of the day, it was a few weeks worth of work already and I didn’t feel that the extra effort was going to increase my satisfaction with the whole thing.  The extra glossy is a must because beer WILL SPILL and you want a slick surface.

If you add in wood and about a million trips to the hardware store, I had close to $600 wrapped up into this project (including the $220 for the freezer).  But, in the end, I have this:

And here is the video on how it all came together.

Broken tap hammer

 I am not sure if “hammer” is the correct terminology (nor am I sure about any of the terms listed below, but it’s what I call the parts), but the part of the tap faucet that hooks to the tap handle and makes the beer flow broke on one of my taps.  This was without a doubt an unexpected occurrence, but it did happen. 

It all started when I wanted to clean my tap faucet out because I had not used it in a while.  I started by trying to remove the tap handle from the faucet and tap handle would not budge.  Initially I was concerned that the tap handle would break (not fully grasping the potential of the faucet breaking) and I took it gentle.  After a while I realized that it was not going to budge so I started to hoss the “cap” (as seen in my makeshift diagram below) in the opposite direction of the tap handle (that is directly connected to the hammer) and eventually it started to turn.  Not good.

Overview of terms

Once the hammer was spinning, I knew something was wrong.  From that point I had to focus on getting the cap away from the faucet to get inside and see what was up.  Sure enough as you can see from the picture at the top, I broke the end of the hammer that hooks into the stopper.  I also damaged the stopper to a point of no return as well.

The good news is that the parts for this (especially in bronze) were cheap.  I was able to fix my tap for around $12 at my LHBS.  As much as the Internet is great, you can’t beat going into a place with your parts and putting things together to make sure everything fits! 

So now its back to flowing with new parts and all is well on the keggerator front! 

Cheers.