A Better World, One Beer at a Time

September 13, 2005 11:14 AM

Pouring a Perfect Pint Faster
Foam does not taste good, foamy beer is bad beer. The TurboTap makes pouring a perfect beer easy and fast by using fluid mechanics even if it does look a little like an unclipped you-know-what. And its not just faster, it saves beer and makes for better profit margins. See it in action (QT video at PopSci site, more on TurboTap's site) and prepare to be impressed.
posted by fenriq (50 comments total)

I think I'm in love.
posted by pmbuko at 11:27 AM on September 13, 2005

Beer is supposed to have a head. If this thing eliminates it entirely, that's not really any good. Unless you're drinking Bud Lite.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 11:28 AM on September 13, 2005

Looks like you still get a head though. I was pretty cynical till I saw the videos. Uk supplier please!?
posted by brautigan at 11:35 AM on September 13, 2005

Well, if this is as good as they say it is, you can expect these to pop up everywhere.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:37 AM on September 13, 2005

Eww, that thing puts way too much froth on the beer. But then, I'm a Scottish real ale drinker, so flat and ambient temperature is the way to go.
posted by scruss at 11:37 AM on September 13, 2005

An unclipped I-don't-know-what. It looks like an extra long beer tap.

TOCT, it doesn't explicitly say so anywhere, but here they refer to "the correct collar of foam". Sounds like my kinda party.
posted by Plutor at 11:38 AM on September 13, 2005

Seen it on TV. Wasn't impressed that you have to 'rent' them from the manufacturer.
posted by Exad at 11:44 AM on September 13, 2005

How exactly does it increase keg yields? (15-30% is what they claim)
posted by RustyBrooks at 11:44 AM on September 13, 2005

Paging jonmc! Beer thread!

How would one ever drink a Guiness if head on a beer is bad?
posted by nofundy at 11:45 AM on September 13, 2005

nofundy, I was quite tempted to make the page title "Paging JonMC, Paging JonMC, please pick up your pint and report to thread #45091".

RustyBrooks, my guess is that the tap reduces waste by not having to overfill glasses to get more beer and less foam. I have had to pour out pitcher after pitcher of beer on a new keg before because it was too shaken up during the changing process.

The speed of the pours in the head to head contest is pretty amazing though I would guess, cynically, that the regular tap is a little monkeyed with to pour more slowly.
posted by fenriq at 11:49 AM on September 13, 2005

RustyBrooks, I would assume the savings is due in part to vendors not having to top off or overflow the cup to fill it properly.
posted by schoolgirl report at 11:50 AM on September 13, 2005

My great grandfather always gave bartenders a hard time, saying he wanted the foam on the bottom. If this thing can't do that, I'm not interested.
posted by brundlefly at 11:51 AM on September 13, 2005

They probably increase the pressure on the turbotap-equipped kegs, because the device delivers the beer to the bottom of the pint, so the head doesn't keep increasing.

If you did that same pressure increase on a "regular" tap, the beer would come blasting out, creating a huge head, splashing all over etc.
posted by Brian James at 11:54 AM on September 13, 2005

Hmmm, a well built and maintained tap system shouldn't blow foam into every pint. New kegs, however, are always a problem and I don't see how this gadget will fix that. I'll pass.
posted by elwoodwiles at 11:55 AM on September 13, 2005

Where were you two months ago!!??

Of course, a 99 buck a year lease for a home draft system is nutso. Even with the foamage, I was paying much less per oz of foaming Smuttynose beer than I would have if I bought it by the case.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:05 PM on September 13, 2005

That is not beer. That is mass produced, gassy, tasteless crap.

Beer should not be full of gas, it should be flat and pulled out of the keg using a conventional hand pump!
posted by bap98189 at 12:12 PM on September 13, 2005

Your fluid dynamics trickery is useless - here.
posted by lalochezia at 12:12 PM on September 13, 2005

Unless you allow the beer to foam, you're going to wind up with all that air in your stomach. You also need to leave a half-inch or so of foam at the top in order prevent the aromatic components from escaping too quickly.
posted by cytherea at 12:13 PM on September 13, 2005

Foam does not taste good, foamy beer is bad beer.

As a connoisseur of all things malt and hops, I think I have never felt stronger disagreement. o-m-g what sacrilege.
posted by uncle harold at 12:18 PM on September 13, 2005

Good things come to those who wait...
posted by funambulist at 12:22 PM on September 13, 2005

Oh I love head. But tis better to receive than to give.
posted by MetaJohn at 12:28 PM on September 13, 2005

I agree with uncle harold (but didn't want to offend fenriq or intimate he isn't entitled to his opinion.)
posted by nofundy at 12:30 PM on September 13, 2005

nofundy, aww, that's sweet! First pint's on me! And you can have as much foam as you want.

I'll stand by my belief that a glass of foam can not ever taste anywhere near as good as a glass of beer. And yes, a little foam is desired but a controlled amount makes for a better glass.
posted by fenriq at 12:37 PM on September 13, 2005

nofundy: I don't think anyone is going to be offended - Bashing the beer taste of other people is like bashing the other soccer team. It's semi-serious in a fun way, but in the end all are soccer fans.
posted by uncle harold at 12:41 PM on September 13, 2005

Well, if you're buying, make mine a Guinness in an ice cold mug please. We'll talk about all those losers [shhh, don't tell!] in Mefi while sipping our beverage.
posted by nofundy at 12:44 PM on September 13, 2005

As a fluid dynamicist by training, I gotta say this is brilliant; a nozzle designed to maintain laminar flow and decrease speed. I just wish they had a video of the conception of the idea (over a good pint I am sure)...
posted by costas at 12:44 PM on September 13, 2005

Although I was impressed, I think I would stick with the old method. There is just no way I could drink 10 beers in one minute.
posted by beelzbubba at 1:02 PM on September 13, 2005

Interesting stuff. In the business lounge at Kansai airport, they've got automatic beer dispensing machines that pour perfect glasses of Asahi. You put a glass on a small shelf, press the GO! button, and watch in mouth-watering admiration as the glass is robotically tipped back slightly to the optimum pouring angle while the tap gives forth its sweet sweet liquid at the optimum flow rate, the beerstream hitting the inclined glass wall in the optimum area. When the glass is almost full, the shelf slowly returns to the level, the tap shuts off, and your beer is ready to drink, complete with the optimum head. It's a miracle of modern engineering.

First time I used the machine I made the mistake of loading it with a juice glass, which is smaller than the beer glass. As there's no glass recognition system in the dispenser, it went about its happy business until the precious liquid gushed over the sides of the glass and onto the counter. I was pretty quick to act, but so were three smiling lounge attendants, who all ran from different areas of the lounge to assist in the clean up job.
posted by nylon at 1:07 PM on September 13, 2005

beelzbubba, there's a time and a place for everything and the time and place for drinking ten beers in a minute is called College.

Nofundy, I like a Guinness quite a bit as well but I'm quite enamored of Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout right now, its like a meal in a bottle! But if I'm out drinking at the bars, I will usually stick with mixed drinks as I hate having to pee every five minutes after a few beers.
posted by fenriq at 1:21 PM on September 13, 2005

Hell if I knew it was going to be this kind of party I'd a stuck my dick in a pint of Guinness
posted by hal9k at 1:33 PM on September 13, 2005

I hate those things. I ordered Negra Modello from one, and it gave me a 12 oz. bottle.
posted by Smart Dalek at 1:39 PM on September 13, 2005

Beer should not be full of gas, it should be flat and pulled out of the keg using a conventional hand pump!
That's wrong on a couple of counts.
First, CAMRA's definition of "real ale" does not proscribe gas. Gas, or rather carbon dioxide, is the natural product (along with alcohol) of yeast fermentation. After real ale is placed in a closed cask, it continues to ferment under pressure and, thus, produce bubbly -- some ales are more lively than others. It's the artificial introduction of CO-2 into classic English ale that CAMRA opposes.
Secondly, surely CAMRA wouldn't object to foam in other styles of beer since their flavor is often enhanced by a decent head. German and Austrian lagers, for example, are properly served with foam. The same goes for many Belgian ales which, without a decent level of gas, would taste too heavy. Indeed, some Belgian beer glasses (tulip-shaped) are designed to produce and then control foaming during the pour.

That said, expect so see more innovation in tap handles. Fosters is marketing the HIT Tap, with two separate spouts -- one to pour the beer, the second to add foam.
posted by sixpack at 1:50 PM on September 13, 2005

in the video, it kinda looked like the guy with the conventional tap was half-assing it, just a little. I mean, he didn't exactly seem to be speedy about getting another glass under the tap.
posted by fishfucker at 2:10 PM on September 13, 2005

Also, if anyone is in the Boston area and going to The Boston Beer Summit Oktoberfest, drop me a line!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:11 PM on September 13, 2005

They put this stuff into bottles @ 800+ per minute @ the brewery.

Sorry, i'm not impressed :)
posted by freq at 2:19 PM on September 13, 2005

You don't need technology to pull a good pint, you just have to care.
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:24 PM on September 13, 2005

So they build the perfect beer tap, and then use it with plastic cups???

(also, the amount of head depends on the beer... pour me a flat-top Hoegaarden and I'm leaving.)
posted by pompomtom at 2:42 PM on September 13, 2005

head? who said head? i'll take some of that!
posted by slogger at 3:14 PM on September 13, 2005

I-still-dont-know-what it looks like an unclipped one of.
posted by wilful at 4:41 PM on September 13, 2005

the guy with the conventional tap was half-assing it

His row of beer glasses seems to be further away from the tap than the other.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:43 PM on September 13, 2005

wilful, then I would guess you are circumsized.
posted by fenriq at 5:01 PM on September 13, 2005

Oh a PENIS! (Is that a rude word? Excessive prudery)

Doesn't look like one to me, but I don't have them on the mind!
posted by wilful at 6:13 PM on September 13, 2005

Just one thing: if it ain't a hand pump, it ain't ever going to be a perfect pint.


posted by Decani at 6:38 PM on September 13, 2005

I meant to add... /Brit real ale snob
posted by Decani at 6:38 PM on September 13, 2005

Brewing kills the essence of the beer's ingredients, turing once beautiful hops, barley and wheat into some sort of dark, acrid sludge.

All true beer lovers consume the materials raw, and ferment them internally.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:54 PM on September 13, 2005

Just one thing: if it ain't a hand pump, it ain't ever going to be a perfect pint.

Even CAMRA accepts gas-assisted pumps as long as the gas doesn't come into contact with the beer.
posted by biffa at 2:36 AM on September 14, 2005

I should note that the traditional Scottish tall fount is gas-assisted, sort-of -- but not bottled compressed gas, and it seems to be kosher per CAMRA rules: IIRC it uses a low-pressure line to suck the beer up out of the cellar, rather than pumping under pressure (which dissolves the propellant gas in the liquid, altering its flavour).

But, to get back to the topic in hand: this device is pointless. If they went back to drinking proper real ale over in the USA, they could get flat, headless pints whenever they wanted by removing the sparkler from the swan-neck. (The sparkler is a 10 pence piece of plastic that screws onto the end of the swan-neck tube on a hand pump and acts as a spray head. If your bitter or Scottish-style IPA or 80/- or whatever has too much foam on top, try asking the bar staff to loosen the sparkler a bit. Works wonders. If they look at you blankly or ask "what's a sparkler?" you're drinking in the wrong pub -- they don't know enough to keep or serve the beer in good condition.)
posted by cstross at 2:56 AM on September 14, 2005

Even CAMRA accepts gas-assisted pumps as long as the gas doesn't come into contact with the beer.

CAMRA also accepts fat blokes in absurd knitted sweaters. Unlike CAMRA, I accept neither. :-)
posted by Decani at 4:22 AM on September 14, 2005

I don't believe you would be able to make any distinction.
posted by biffa at 5:32 AM on September 14, 2005

SweetJesus wins.
posted by nofundy at 6:28 AM on September 14, 2005