News - Friday, October 12, 2007
Philadelphia Business Journal


Waste not the grog

One restaurant in town has decided it will no longer cry over lost beer.

Tir Na Nog, a traditional Irish pub where an inefficient draft system meant a lot of wasted beer, hired a Virginia company to help monitor the brew -- and potentially save thousands of dollars.

InteliTap, which is based in Powhatan, Va., installs systems to monitor the temperature in the beer cooler and regulate the tap systems. They even manage the keg inventory, which sounds like a job an industrious college kid might dream up.

At many restaurants and bars, according to InteliTap spokesman Sean Ryan, beer is flowing for all the wrong reasons: improper temperatures (too warm means more foam), bad pours, pilferage (read: free beers) and so on. Up to 20 percent of the beer may never reach the paying customer's glass.

At Tir Na Nog, with 36 taps in its draft-beer system, the new system prevents beer from going to waste.

"Our customers expect us to serve them a great draft beer when they visit us," said General Manager Ken Merriman. "InteliTap provides us with the information we need on our draft beer systems to keep them running at peak performance. Our patrons get the draft beer they expect and deserve, and we get repeat customers."