Posted on May 22, 2015
Christian had it pretty good. Four years in a row his pub (The Red Lion) was pub of the year and four years in a row served the best pint. Things had changed though. New cooling systems had become popular in modern pubs. It wasnāt enough to taste good. New customers wanted their pints to be ice cold too.
Christian was pretty confident though. He had the same guy looking after his beer lines for years. Cyril hadnāt quite got the resources of the likes of Paddyās Bar but he assured Chris that heād got ideas that would keep the beer just as cold without the need to overhaul the pubās layout.
Except it didnāt quite work out that way.
Last season Paddyās swept the board.
Pub of the year.
Best Pint.
And to make it worse they seemed to be more popular on the Twitter.
Christian called a crisis meeting with Cyril.
We need to fix this, Cyril. Iāve been down to Paddyās and their setup looks a lot different to ours. Why do we have our coolers down in the basement, with the kegs, when they have them up at the bar? Surely it makes more sense to have shorter runs of pipe for the cold beer.
I thought about that, Christian, but we could fit bigger coolers down in the basement this time and that would achieve the same results. Iāve insulated the pipes too so that should help. Weāll try it this weekend.
Ok. If youāre sure itāll fix it. Iāve some new lagers to try this weekend. Get it done.
Christian arrived in the pub the following weekend, all set up to try out the new lagers and see how Cyril had improved the cooling system. It was a success. Sure the insulation took up a lot of room, but the pints were finally cold. Something seemed off though. The pub was also cold.
Whatās going on, Cyril. Why are all the heaters off?
-Weāve had a problem.
What the hell is wrong now?
-Well, weāve sorted the pints out but weāre using too much power. Iāve had to turn off the heaters so we donāt trip the mains.
Youāre joking? How am I going to run a pub with no heating?
-Beer garden?
Look. The weather looks good for the weekend. Weāll run the new system and sort something out next week.
The phone rang *Scream If You Wanna Go Faster *
It was his main barman, Ricci. Disaster. Customers had complained about the pub being cold and when he turned on the heaters the power had gone. The pub had closed up early and the customers werenāt very happy about it. Even worse, most of them took advantage of Happy Hour up at Paddys.
He called Cyril immediately.
This is a disgrace. I canāt run a pub like this. I might as well shut it down!
Get me the right coolers and move them up into the bar or youāre gone!
-Iām sorry, Chris. I canāt. Iāve spent all the budget I had on that setup and it would cost too much to try and change it now. Maybe if we could ask for a bigger power supply weād be okay.
We canāt get a bigger bloody power supply. For Christ sake man, even the Latino Bar is starting to do more business than us.
-Sorry, Christian, but I havenāt the funds to give you what you want.
Forget it Iām off to Monaco with the wife,
and Iāll tell you what I want, what I really really want-
A f*cking Mercedes supply!
JDD
Image from
http://jakedaviscreative.comlink