January 27, 2014

Monday Rant: Where Be the Bubbles?

I've seen and heard of multiple incidents involving the horror of receiving a pint of beer from infected, dirty or simply bad tap lines at drinking establishments. Up until last weekend I hadn't really experienced such an issue.

I've sat on the idea of writing about it for a week now and I've obviously settled on telling my tale of woe. With that said, I have also decided not to name the establishment in particular. I'm not one that's set out to ruin or harm someone's business.

I was at a pretty large social gathering last Friday. I wasn't too thrilled with the beer selection as I'm known as Mr. Fancy Beer in most of my circles. I grabbed a glass of the Sam Adams Winter Lager as I usually enjoy that beer every year. The place was dimly lit. So, everything was hard to take in visually. What I'm fairly sure was that there was some form of residue or streaks inside my glass the Winter Lager was in. The beer was also quite flat. Not much foam or carbonation at all from what I can recall.

A few minutes later, I found myself in some better light talking to a few others. I noticed that their beer was also distinctly flat. It looked like the beer was cut with water. Then it occurred to me - was the beer that way because of the tap lines?

I wasn't totally sure since I've never ran into such a situation prior to this. Can bad or dirty tap lines cause beer to be flat? Could it have been just the dirty glasses? Was some air getting into their system somewhere? I'm not entirely sure. The place definitely wasn't the most attractive lot in the world.

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