Education Center

Help, my beer is too foamy!

There are four reasons why a beer would pour foamy:

1. Temperature ­ a beer must be 37 degrees F. or colder to pour without foam, especially a kegged product.

2. The cleanliness and maintenance of beer lines ­ If the lines are dirty it may pour foamy. If the faucet is getting old and wearing down, spaces are created which will tend to pour beer foamy. Even something as small as a metal burr in an old worn faucet will cause the beer to pour foamy.

3. Movement ­ If you have just moved the keg about the movement will cause the C02 with the beer to be agitated. The solution to this problem is simple; just let the keg stand still for a couple of hours and make sure it is kept cold.

4. The way in which a beer is poured - If you’re pouring from a draught tap the best way to pour is to rinse the glass first in cold water. Angle the glass along side of the faucet. Snap the faucet all the way open and pour the beer down the side of the glass. As your approaching the top snap the faucet off. If you want to have a larger head on the beer than what was poured then quickly add a wee bit more to help with a foamy head. Do not try and pour draught beer with the faucet opened partially thinking that if the faucet is only open partially your pour more slowly, it doesn’t work. It will always pour foamy by doing this. Pouring beer into a beer glass from a bottle, angle the glass so the beer pours down the inside of the glass.

Help, my beer is too flat!

Faulty Dishwashers are the most common perpetrator. If it’s draught beer and the beer appears to pour flat it’s not the keg. Commercial breweries use a very expensive scientific instrument called a volume meter to check on the carbonation of the keg. It may have to do with draught beer line cleanliness or maintenance, again but the most often it is the dishwasher and the glasses. The very best way to check if it is the glasses is to take a brand new plastic disposable cup out of it’s sleeve and pour beer in it. Because the plastic cup is clean you’ll tell in a hurry if it’s the glasses or the line.

A way to tell if your glass is beer ready or not is to pour a beer and as you are drinking it watch the sides of the glass. There should be rings of white foam left as your beer disappears. These white rings in the glass are called Belgium Lace and this is a good thing, it means that glass was beer ready and clean. If there isn’t any Belgium Lace your glass was not beer ready.

A lot of licensed establishments do not polish their beer glasses any more. Lack of understanding, time and costs of polishing a beer glass are making this practice like the dinosaurs. It’s sad, as this is the best way to serve a beer. There are modern beer glass rinses that are starting to appear which helps but there’s nothing like a hand polished beer glass.

If you’ve poured beer weather it be draught or from a bottle and the beer suddenly goes flat in your glass right before your very eyes the culprit is fat. Lipsticks, chap-sticks, and fat partials that are small enough to float in the air from food can cause beer to go flat, instantly. Even particles of dust from ceiling fans can cause flat beer. The biggest culprit is the glass you pour your beer into.

Another thing to note about draught beer is the manner in which the licensed establishment “pushes” the kegged beer. You have to have some pressure to push beer out of that keg and down the beer line. Most places now a days use C02 or a beer blend mix of Nitrogen and C02. The best mix for a craft brewery beer like Fat Cat’s beer is a 50/50 blend. Then there are some places that use air. The management tends to “stick their fingers in their ears” and doesn’t want to know that by using a “gas” to push beer that they’ll actually get more out of keg (because of better pressure,) and that the beer they are serving you will taste better and last longer. Air is good only if you can pour the whole keg within a day or two. Craft Brewery beer is not pasteurized and putting a layer of air into the keg is disastrous. The beer reacts with the air and becomes oxidized causing the beer to turn into “poop”. Fat Cat Brewery does not have their beer on tap anywhere that uses air as the media to push with.