There is a new bar opening here in Portland sometime in March called the Oktoberfest International Taphouse and they’re promising to have over 350 beers on the menu, including 100 beers on tap.This got me thinking yesterday: not that I know a whole lot about the behind-the-scenes work of draft beer but I do know that there are separate containers for beer and for CO2 so, by my calculations, that means at least 300 kegs for 100 taps (right?); not to mention all of the tubing, gauges, refrigeration, etc. And, if the bar is successful enough to go through numerous kegs a week – that seems like an awful lot of work and an awfully high risk that something won’t be up to snuff. I would love to see it work out – it’d be an amazing beer menu if it does – but I have a tough time believing that it will.
So, my question is this: What’s the highest number of taps you’ve seen work well (operative word “well”) in one place before? Do you think 100+ is really do-able? Leave a comment!
[image by mosesxan]
Comments
I was in a bar in Brussels that claimed to have several hundred different beers on tap, and if that would be attempted anywhere, it would be Belgium. Can’t say whether it worked, because even when I was 22 and fresh out of college, I couldn’t have tried one of each in one evening. I had a faro (a lambic whose source sugar is rock candy instead of fruit), and it was the best faro I’d ever had, but that’s not saying much.
The Big Hunt in D.C. has two or three dozen taps running good seasonals and micros. And there’s the Flatbreads chain… only brewpubs I’ve ever seen that also sell competing regional drafts and bottles. Again, though, 20 or 30 taps.