Dollars on tap: draft beer serves up pourable profits when selection and equipment are in sync.

The one constant of the fashion industry--that everything eventually comes back into style--is also true in hospitality. Cocktails have made a comeback, fresh-prep focused restaurants are giving fast food a run for its money, and, look here: It's draft beer, suddenly getting attention again. A lot of attention.

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What's bringing draft beer out of the cooler? Is it flavor? A media trend? Some new fad? Perhaps all of those, but for operators, part of it is certainly something much simpler: profit.

Among those looking to drive the draft profit message home to operators is Anheuser-Busch, which created a Draft Sales and Technology Department in 2003, headed by Rosanne Leake. She gets right to the point. "The profitability can be significant. In the end, it's not all that complicated. Being able to serve consistently good draft beer tends to bring the customer back."

William Reed, bar manager and partner at Standard Tap in Philadelphia, Pa., knows that "there's nothing you can sell that has a better return on investment than draft beer." He's put his dispensers where his mouth is: Standard Tap is all-draft; no beer in bottles or cans there.

But wait. Bottles and cans look simple and cheap compared to draft. You put a cooler behind the bar, you take out the bottles as you need them, you re-stock when you need to. Draft is all those lines and valves and taps, not to mention moving around the heavy kegs and foamy beer spraying all over. It can't be a "great return," can it?

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"Let's clear up a few urban myths," says Jaime Jurado, director of brewing operations for The Gambrinus Company in San Antonio, Texas. He's made a close, technical study of draft dispensing (he wrote the book on it; see sidebar). "The economics are simple: a bar owner can either manage seven cases of beer or a keg. The cases take up more room in the cooler, and there is a real physical waste problem in managing all the empties. It costs a lot to empty dumpsters.

"A keg requires less physical space," Jurado continues, warming to the subject. "When emptied, it weighs about 25 pounds, and is picked up by the distributor. And the purchase cost of the beer in that keg will always be appreciably less than the equivalent in cases of bottled beer--more than a $25 difference is usual for the same amount of beer."

QUALITY MATTERS

It's also easier to get draft to the customer, Jurado points out. "The labor to un-tap a keg, drag over a replacement keg and re-tap [it] is less than the accumulated labor of managing seven cases of beer in glass. And the total weight of those seven cases is approximately 245 pounds; compare that to a full keg at 165 pounds. Sure, one can conveniently handle a case at a time, but if you have six or more bottles available, you start needing a much bigger, costlier cooler and you probably have to walk some distance to replenish cold wells with beer from the cooler. All this disappears when draft beer is exploited."

Reed at Standard Tap agrees. "The equipment is absolutely worth it. Compared to the amount of money we spend on kitchen equipment--which wears out faster--it's less. Buy the best equipment: There's less waste and the bartenders can pour faster."

The other side of draft's resurgence is the booming popularity of craft beer sales, a strong, profitable bright spot in a lagging beer market. A good example of how and why that works can be found at The Old Fashioned, in Madison, Wis., which opened in December 2005. Partner Bob Miller explains that to be the kind of place they wanted it to be, local draft beer was essential.

"We're a traditional Wisconsin tavern and restaurant, so we wanted to put as much Wisconsin tap beer on as we could. Tap beer is the way to go," says Miller. "People want to know what's on tap and they'll come back for it."

A craft draft program can be very varied. Just ask Patrick Mullin, general manager of The Drafting Room in Exton, Pa., who ran 248 different draft beers through in 2005 (he's ahead of that pace for 2006), and he's disarmingly honest about the reason. "Why? It's part of the fun. Part of the hobby is finding new beers, new breweries, new seasonals. It's really for selfish reasons: I like to drink good draft beer. More power to me!"

Mullin's sentiment is common among draft beer supporters: They like draft beer enough to mention that preference. Is it better? "Tough to say," Mullin hedges. "Draft is handled better, as a general rule. The importers and distributors know they have to keep the kegs cold, so they do. I prefer draft, but it's got to be at a place where they take care of it. Like any other business, hobby or calling, you've got to find someone who's passionate about what they do. If they don't like wine, they're not going to become a sommelier."

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That's what A-B's Leake calls a "beertender." It's all part of what she describes as "raising the focus on draught." The use of "draught" is intentional. "We've drawn a line in the sand internally," Leake explains. "When we spell it 'draught,' it's distinctly beer, not a version of a book.

"One focus is draught quality on the dispense side: systems, cleaning, pressure sources, beer towers," she explains. "Another component is developing marketing and sales tools to support draught image. And there's a retail draught training component: guest satisfaction, training and proper presentation."

DRAFT OBSESSED 

Leake notes that many of the big restaurant chains--the ones with the training resources to do draft right--really get it. "They understand the profit potential of draught. They understand the importance of an inch of foam, a beer-clean glass. It's not just the profitability; it's the presentation to the customer: the release of carbonation and aroma."

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Draft beer is serious business at the 16 Sherlock's Baker St. Pub & Grill and 221B Baker St. Pub & Grill locations operated by Houston-based Hospitality USA, where beer generates 50 percent of beverage sales. At each restaurant, 24 taps deliver national, regional and local brews.

"Why 24 taps? Well, we've determined that's the number we can manage and keep the beer flowing, change the kegs out regularly and insure we're serving fresh beer all the time," says Edgar Carlson, HUSA principal. Domestics do well on draft, but Guinness is the draft leader, with Newcastle, Harp, Bottington's and Bass on the rise. In fact, draft overall is on the rise. "We're definitely seeing our draft beer sales grow," notes vice president of operations Bob Allison.

Eric Peterson is the head of an obsessive draft department at Fado Irish Pubs, which is headquartered in Atlanta and operates 11 locations across the U.S. He has to be obsessive; he's pouring the most draft-associated beers in America: Guinness.

"It stems from the whole pouring ritual, the two-step pour. So we have established freshness standards for our kegs that are above and beyond what even Guinness calls for. We have strict line cleaning standards; we have a glassware maintenance program. We clean the dishwashing machines weekly, and no coffee cups or milk are allowed in the machines for the glasses. And Guinness supports it through staff and management training," says Peterson.

Brewers are increasingly stepping up to help on-premise operators deliver their products properly. The Perfectly Poured system from Killian's Irish Red just went national. Involving a new faucet and a spiffy signature bronze horse-head tap head, the system is calibrated to deliver the right mix of beer and oxygen for a thick, foamy head.

Everyone agrees that draft maintenance--including pressure and temperature checks, equipment quality and constant line cleaning--is crucial. "Every system is different," A-B's Leake notes. "Pressure, temperature and cleanliness all tie together. If you've got clean lines, but the wrong temperature, for instance, you've got problems. It's complete system maintenance."

Draft can be the shortest distance between you and better profits. Make it a focus of your business; take a look at your current draft presentation. "Do you have a plain stainless T-box, or a European-style tower?" asks Leake. "Are your taps front and center, or are they a sidebar for servers? Do you have dedicated glassware for beer, or do you serve soda in those glasses too? Martinis have their glass; we strongly believe beer should have a glass. How well are your servers trained: Does the beer still have that nice, rich head when they serve it? There's so much you can do to promote draught beer."

Peterson is sold on draft for personal and business reasons. "I do my own quality audits a glass at a time. My work is never done! Seriously, Fado's draft program represents a lot of time and energy, but it's well worth it. We sell a lot of draft Guinness--it's our bestseller--and I'd love to sell more." There's a guy who gets draft.

Lew Bryson is the author of three brewery guidebooks, including Pennsylvania Breweries (Third Edition). He writes and consults on beer and spirits from Bucks County, Pa.

RELATED ARTICLE: DRAFT RESOURCES

It's always good to have some experts on hand, and there are people out there to help you with draft questions and problems. Start with your local beer wholesaler or your local brewery, but if you need to escalate, here are some go-to guys and gals.

Rosanne Leake offers Anheuser-Busch's draught information website: www.ABDraught.com, a good compendium of practical advice for your "beertenders." The brewer also has the recently updated "Beertender's Guide" pamphlet, available from your A-B wholesaler.

Draft equipment manufacturer MicroMatic's website, www.micromatic.com, is a great source of information, including an active forum where operators discuss real issues with draft dispense.

If you want to get down and dirty with numbers and details on your draft system, the Master Brewer's Association of America has a book called Brewing Engineering and Plant Operations that has a 45-page chapter on draft dispense, written by draft fanatic Jaime Jurado. It's a college-level course on draft beer: click on www.mbaa.com.

RELATED ARTICLE: CASK IN QUESTION

Fewer than 500 bars in America serve cask ale, or "real ale." It's the English ale that is the source of all the stories of "warm, flat beer," the stuff you'll see being "pumped" at pubs in BBC television shows. It's a lot of work to do properly; it needs special equipment and goes bad quickly. But when it's on, it's simply marvelous, a mouthful of low carbonation flavor.

Do you want cask at your bar? Patrick Mullin at the Drafting Room in Exton, Pa. has some frank observations. "Five years ago, cask was really big. I used to have two pumps," he recalls, "and business supported it, even with the outrageous prices I was paying on the imported casks. But it got to a point where I was throwing out too much. It doesn't last. You've got to sell it in five or six days or it gets funky." He's absolutely right: You've got to sell it or dump it.

And it's even more finicky than draft on equipment. Mullin lays it out: "You need a dedicated cooler for the different temperature since the cask should be at about 50 degrees. Most places don't have the space or the money to do that. Then you need supply, which is not always easy. Most brewers don't do cask ale, and the ones who do don't trust just anyone with it."

But for all the downside, Mullin does still have one pump. William Reed at Standard Tap in Philadelphia has two. It's the area: according to cask enthusiast Alex Hall's "U.S. Cask Ale Pages" website (http://www. cask-ale.co.uk/us/statemenu.html), the Philadelphia metropolitan area has the highest concentration of bars serving cask ale in the country.

Reed tips his hat to that concentration. "In Philly, a lot of consumer education has already been done. Cask is not a huge volume for us, but it's a good volume. Two days on tap is a long time for a half barrel of cask for us. Most of the brewers that are selling cask ale are a good source of information for anyone who wants to sell it."

Good cask draws the people who appreciate it. "It's not really the margin that makes it a good business decision. There are people who are hard-core cask aficionados, and it's part of the draw," Mullin says. "We have a lot of hotels around here, and actually get a lot of English tourists and businesspeople who come to the Drafting Room specifically because of the cask."

Talk to your local brewer about cask if you're interested. If you're serious, and they do cask, they'll be happy to help train you. Start small: cask often comes in five-gallon kegs called pins. It takes special cooling (which can be as simple as an insulated ice jacket), a few special tools and the pump, but you'll have an extraordinary asset that will set you apart from the common bar.

Just remember what Mullin advises: "I taste it every day. You have to know what it's doing. If it's gone sour, don't think about pushing it or discounting it. Consider it part of your cask education, and sell the next cask harder."