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Stellar Sales From the Suds
Draft Beer Offers Operators Incredible Financial Flow
By Andy Ashby
 A bar without draft beer can be compared to a bakery without
bagels — sure, there are other offerings to please guests — but owners
still are missing out on some serious dough. There is no question that
draft beer is liquid gold when proper operations and promotions are in
place, and today’s marketplace of brew has more depth than ever. Tap
into the financial flow of draft beer if you haven’t already, and if
you already enjoy the profits draft beer produces — especially during
football season — ask yourself how your program can be more successful,
still.
Wide Margins
At the Tap House Grill in Bellevue, Wash., operators don’t really offer
draft specials. Instead, knowing the proven profit power of drafts,
they draw in people with their tremendous selection of beer. With 160
taps, that also means there is a wide variety of prices. They charge
$3.75 for inexpensive beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, and they go all
the way up to $9.75 for high-end brands. Many of their more expensive
beers are from Belgium, with brands such as Grand Cru and Delirium
Nocturnum.
However, a large percentage of their best-selling draft beers are made
close to home. Tap House staff move a lot of draft beer from Mac and
Jack’s Brewing Co., located in Redmond, Wash.
Other strong draft sellers are more familiar suspects: Pyramid Hefe,
Guinness, Bud Light and Coors Light. “There’s a wide range of clientele
that comes in here. We have a lot of options, which helps get people
into the door,” Bar Manager Brad Carson says. “But, it’s still
profitable, so a lot of people order what they recognize. They like to
go with something they are familiar with.”
The Tap House Grill has 10 to 15 handles which are rotated often, going
between seasonal and specialty beers. “Rogue Brewery always sells well,
and they have a good selection,” Carson says.
Promote Sampling
Another way to sell draft beer is to let the customers taste the
product. That’s actually one of the benefits of choosing draft beer.
“It gives the customer a chance to try something different, something
they might not have had before,” Carson says.
It also can mean the customer can diversify his or her tastes. If
someone likes Guinness, they might like any of the three other dry
stouts they have at the Tap House Grill.
Tom Thayer, co-owner and general manger of d.b.a. in New Orleans, says
sampling is key to selling draft beer. “My No. 1 tip would be to let
people try stuff. People will say, ‘I don’t like beer,’ and the next
thing you know, they love it. It usually works.”
This is how d.b.a. staff sells Lindeman’s Framboise, a Belgium
raspberry beer. Once people become familiar with it, it sells well.
According to Shannon Hopkins, general manger at Barley’s Taproom in
Knoxville, Tenn., there are plenty of other ways to move draft beer, as
well. One way they do it at Barley’s is to have plenty of specials.
Operators there offer $2 drafts during Happy Hour and on Mondays. They
are even thinking of extending the promotion to Tuesdays and combining
it with a popular local band, recouping some of the money by charging a
small cover.
Knowledge is Wisdom
Staff knowledge also is crucial to increasing draft beer revenues. This cannot be under-emphasized.
“It makes a world of difference,” Carson says. “People come in here and
want to talk beer. There are some people that are like wine snobs,
except they are all about beer, and they want to have conversations
about it.”
The most important benefit of the staff having ample beer knowledge is
that they can specifically offer someone something they like. If a
customer comes into the bar and asks for something malty, a pale ale
would definitely not be in order. Beer knowledge helps the staff steer
customers to beers they enjoy, thus ensuring they come back to your
establishment for more. Not everyone who walks into your establishment
is going to be a beer connoisseur, though, of course. Some people need
help.
At Barley’s, the operators have a three-fold bar menu on every table.
Since they have a wide variety of beer, this helps the customer narrow
down their choices. It also helps the servers. “You can’t run down a
list every time you go to a table. Having a menu on the table in the
time it takes a server to get there helps tremendously,” Hopkins says.
Barley’s staff also educates people by having a Meet the Brewer Night.
A brewery representative will show up and talk about their product,
pass out materials and giveaway items and get to know people.
Profitable Pours
Hopkins says Carolina Blonde is pretty much the No. 1 seller every week
at Barley’s. The reason this North Carolina product does well is that
it appeals to many people.
“It is probably the closest thing to a Miller Lite- or Bud Light-type
beer, but it’s handcrafted. It’s kind of a safety beer. We recommend it
to people who like Bud Light or Miller Lite, and generally people enjoy
it and continue to drink it,” Hopkins says.
At d.b.a., Hoegaarden White is their best-selling draft among the bar’s 20 taps.
“We have heat down here most of the year and that beer is good for
that. It’s a well-made product, and it’s the original white beer,”
Thayer says. His team also sells a lot of Abita Amber, Anchor Liberty,
Rogue Dead Guy and Lindeman’s Framboise, he says.
At d.b.a., they also keep a close eye on wasted draft beer. “We
certainly emphasize pour controls, especially for Belgiums,” Thayer
says.
Expensive Belgiums have special glassware with marks on them to mark
where the head should start; d.b.a. also has a top-of-the-line beer
system, which is conducive to saving beer. One of the features is that
the lines are chilled all the way to the tap, so beer is not getting
warm in the line.
Barley’s has a cooler directly behind the wall for all of its beers.
“We try to keep our draft lines as short as possible to keep bacteria
out of the lines, keep less beer in the lines and to give the best beer
possible,” Hopkins says. This also saves waste on beer when they have
to clean the lines.
At Barley’s, the operators like their beers to have three quarters of
an inch to one-inch head. Accordingly, managers try to encourage the
staff to report taps problems so they can fix it. “Having to pour a
pitcher of foam to get one beer — it wastes time, and it wastes
product,” Hopkins says. “We try to keep (servers) aware of how much
they’re pouring and how much they’re spilling.”
With his average keg costing $112 and containing roughly 110 beers, it’s important to get every profitable drop out of each one.
“Every time someone tips over a pitcher or puts a quarter of an inch on
a beer, it’s lost profits,” Hopkins says. “Every time someone wastes
that beer, it’s just money down the drain.” NCB
In Search of the Perfect Pour
To the customer, draft beer looks easy. You pull the handle, and beer
comes out. Done and done. However, every good bar manager knows there’s
a lot more to making sure that draft beer flows out right.
Brad Carson, bar manager with the Tap House Grill in Bellevue, Wash.,
knows that even the most competent bar operator needs a good friend.
“It’s important to have good distributors and draft techs, people to
come out and solve little problems that you might have with your draft
system,” Carson says.
With 160 taps at the Tap House Grill, it would take up too much time to
have the bartenders or managers handle maintenance. This is why they
have a subcontractor come out and clean taps and deal with carbon
dioxide problems.
“Just as long as you have the support, the distributors will make sure everything is up and running,” Caron says.
Another important part of a draft system is limiting waste. While you
always have to worry about the occasional dropped bottle, draft beer
waste sneaks up slowly. It might be a little too much head here or a
little spill there.
Since the Tap House Grill has so many draft beers, they make sure they
monitor this important part of their business. A few months ago, they
switched carbon dioxide and nitrous systems to prevent waste. While it
would be ideal to have each keg regulated in its own cooler, it’s not
practical. The Tap House Grill staff uses one giant cooler that keeps
all the beers at one temperature. However, every two beers have their
own pressure regulators so that they can adjust the flow easily.
It’s also important to make sure the bartenders are pouring the beers
correctly. You can’t just set a glass down and yank on the tap handle.
It’s important to tilt the glass and allow the beer to run down the
glass, therefore reducing the chance of overflow and waste.
While draft beer has its own challenges, it’s worth it. “There is some
stuff that is only available on draft, and that gives you the
opportunity to give customers something they haven’t tried before,”
Carson says.
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