We're blessed here in Seattle that we have some of the worlds best breweries right outside our front door. As great as the breweries and the beer is, Seattle is also notorious for serving bad beer. I've had beer that was direct from the producer that was amazing, and then ordered the same beer somewhere else and gotten a glass full of liquid cardboard. Or worse, a glass full of sour....something.
Poor maintenance of beer lines is a leading culprit to giving otherwise good beer off-flavors. As a brewery there isn't much you can do about how your beer is served once the keg leaves your hands. As a consumer, I often let restaurant and pub owners know when I detect off-flavors in beer, and typically give them an extra chance (or two) to clean up their act. Even with this effort I have developed my own internal short-list of places around town where I simply won't drink the beer and, needless to say, you won't be likely to find Populuxe beer on tap.
That said, this post isn't about what other people do to ruin your beer. It's about what we're doing to make sure that when you come down to the tap room you are getting the freshest, best presented beer possible.
Here's a picture of one of the sankey spears I removed from the used kegs I bought a while back:
These spears run down the center of a keg and deliver beer back up through the tap. These parts should always be bright and sparkling clean, but as you can see, this one is crusted with brown/grey beer stone. I don't want to knock the previous owner of this keg, but it's obvious that their cleaning regimen wasn't up to snuff.
Here's the same spear after some elbow grease and a little caustic:
Like new! Removing the beer stone ensures that the beer, when delivered to the customer, is as tasty as we intend it to be. We'd never expect you to drink from a dirty glass, so why would you want to drink from a dirty keg? Removing spears and inspecting the inside of kegs is a hassle, but one I think it worth it if it means creating the best possible beer we can.
