I Can’t Pour: Beer Edition

“Do you have gas? Is your gas on?” Just look at me being a broken record. It’s easy to assume that gas is the issue with most troubleshooting calls. We had a call a few months ago from a local brewery that was having pouring problems. We’ve worked with them extensively to optimize their system since opening and had just adjusted some keg lines but got a call the next day.

“The beer is dribbling out and then just stopped.” Since we had just done supply line work, we were worried that something strange happened, like a clamp popped off or there was a kink in the line. A group of us went over to check out the situation; scoped out the lines, which were fine. We checked the regulators and connections to see if there was a leak; there wasn’t. Opening the faucet just resulted in gas and nothing.

The keg was full. Full, full, full. “When was this keg changed?” Near the end of the shift the night before? Hmm. The line was empty… and the keg is full. When we figured out what the issue was, we all laughed and turned varying shades of red. The coupler wasn’t FULLY connected. It looked like it was, and it was engaged so gas could flow, but it wasn’t screwed in all the way so it couldn’t open the valve.

We properly connected the coupler and voila. Wonderful beer that wasn’t foaming or dribbling. It can be so easy to get caught up in the normal system component questions, but I’d like to add one more: “Has anything changed in your system recently?” This can cover line adjustment, regulator adjustment, new kegs, new cylinders, and so on.