Remote Beer Draft System

[Dennis66stang]

Anyone in the Beer distribution field I could use some advice.

So I am opening a restaurant with a friend of mine and we will have a fairly large bar. I am thinking we will have 8-10 beers on draft. We only have 2 on draft at our current restaurant and use a keg cooler behind the bar. We are trying to decide between buying 2 large keg coolers to put behind the bar, and use up a lot of space, or install a remote system. I am not familiar with remote systems but I do have some general knowledge of how they work. We have walk-in cooler space for the kegs, so all we would need would be the lines, glycol chiller, and any taps to the kegs. I would guess the lines would be around 100 feet from the cooler to the bar.

Anyone with advice on what I should be looking for, general price ranges, ect to get this set up.

Thanks
Dennis

 

[stangg]

No idea on what you are looking at for cost, but that's what brother's places have... kegs in the walkin cooler, taps at the bar... I don't recall any additional chillers other than a large cold plate that sits in a bucket of ice within few feet of the taps... In both cases I don't think the lines are more than 30-40 feet from the walkin cooler.

 

[JeffTepper]

I am working with a group that is the exclusive distributor for TurboTap. If you are interested in the product, let me know and I can have someone who can better answer your current questions contact you.

http://turbotap.com/

 

[LSTCUP]

100 feet is long way! a dedicated walk-in fridge is the way to go, remember you'll need the back up kegs ready to be hooked up nice and cold, you should have a (i call it a fob) where when the keg goes empty a plastic ball drops to block the line from filling with air, you should clean your draft lines once a month and you'll have a lot of wasted beer in those lines when cleaning, all the lines leaving the fridge should be wrapped in an insulated, refrigerated trunk, I have 18 beers on tap at my bar which is approximately 30 feet from the bar, let me know if you need pics of anything.

 

[Dennis66stang]

So as an update, we have a second walk-in cooler that is less then 40 feet away that would be much better to use, and after talking to some beer reps we are going to only have 8 on tap because after 8 beers you need to have extra glycol lines to keep it cold. I have a guy coming out tuesday to give me a quote but I have been told around 4k, which would be cheaper then buying 2 keg coolers, so I think this is the way to go.

 

[LSTCUP]

So as an update, we have a second walk-in cooler that is less then 40 feet away that would be much better to use, and after talking to some beer reps we are going to only have 8 on tap because after 8 beers you need to have extra glycol lines to keep it cold. I have a guy coming out tuesday to give me a quote but I have been told around 4k, which would be cheaper then buying 2 keg coolers, so I think this is the way to go.

40 feet is better, Beer reps will usually help with the costs to run and cool the lines for their products...

 

[stangg]

No idea on what you are looking at for cost, but that's what brother's places have... kegs in the walkin cooler, taps at the bar... I don't recall any additional chillers other than a large cold plate that sits in a bucket of ice within few feet of the taps... In both cases I don't think the lines are more than 30-40 feet from the walkin cooler.

Turns out the beer lines are actually chilled between the walkin chest and the cold plate via a roughly 5 inch insulated air duct. There's a squirell cage type blower motor at the walkin end that recirculates the air through the duct work. In this case, the distance is less than 30 feet, and there are 5 lines running through it... this system has been in place since about 1970, it works but the glycol setups are better.