Home Bar Fitting Archives

Posted on 26 July 202226 July 2022 by Steve

Beer Pipe / Beer Line / Beer Gas Pipe

We have beer pipe listed in a couple of spots on the webshop – Here and Here – but they don’t really cover the complete picture so…

Most beer pipe is 3/8 and we have miles of it. Some pipe is 5/16 so often out of the back of taps or fonts you may find 5/16 beer pipe. Also, the fittings on some coolers are 5/16 as well so the size itself is not unusual but it catches plenty of people out because it isn’t always obvious from first glance that it’s a slightly quirky size. It’s relatively normal stuff in the industry though and we always have a supply.

The ‘microbore’ beer pipe that we see, the really small bore stuff, is 3/16 and is very common. We rarely use it in more than two metre sections but it is a critical item which, again, we have loads of in stock always.

Beer gas pipe is always 3/8 and is colour coded. We don’t always have all the colours but we always have some beer gas pipe available.

The other size that’s of interest on the beer dispense side is 1/2 (half inch). This is the common size for beer engines or hand pumps. Again, it’s something we keep a good supply of. We’ve never quite figured out why we might use braided or non braided so tend not to worry too much about that aspect; we will use and supply whatever we have in stock.

We keep python as well, often offcuts from jobs but we usually have some around if that’s what you’re looking for.

If you can’t see what you need on the webshop it doesn’t mean that we don’ have it neccessarily; always worth dropping us a message.

Posted on 25 July 202225 July 2022 by Steve

Beer Gas – Update

We really want to help brewers and home bar users but beer gas has become a particular headache and we are finding ourselves less and less able to help.

We had a supply agreement with Hobbybrew which at least gave us access to gas, but at a price that made me feel like I was ripping customers off unfortunately. I wasn’t, our margins on the gas were pretty thin, but asking for £107 for a cylinder of gas just didn’t seem right. Our minimum purchase for a supply was over £2000 as well so a lot of money to be tied up in a slow moving product; a slow moving product that returned thin margins.

We’ve dropped the product sadly, but will of course honour any cylinder deposits that are owed.

Posted on 6 October 20216 October 2021 by Steve

Beer Gas

Beer gas for home brewers and for dispense within home bars has become something of an issue in some areas and, as it happens, the Fylde Coast where we are is one of those areas.

Beer gas is kind of the under appreciated component in home bars or home brewing setups but when we get down to it it’s a critical component. Without gas all of the home bars we install, every single one of them, stops dispensing beer. Similarly, if you carbonate beer in your brewing setup as we do over here in’t shed, or ferment under pressure as some do, then without CO2 your process comes to a halt.

As ever with these problems we’ve looked for a solution and whilst we don’t always find a solution we have in this case; we’ve done a deal with Hobby Brew and are now their appointed agent for beer gas on the Fylde Coast and surrounding area. We can supply C02, 30/70 and 60/40 beer gas.

The deal is a £70 bottle deposit with refills (cylinder exchanges actually) priced ay £36 for mixed gas and £35 for CO2.

This is definitely a step away from finding a bottle on Freebay and then exchanging it for a full with the gas company or getting a cylinder from a pal who has a pub, we get that completely, but it is a guarantee of supply locally and you won’t be stuck for beer gas.

Posted on 29 September 202129 September 2021 by Steve

Home Bars Supplied and Fitted

We supply and fit home bar equipment across the Fylde Coast. If you want one beer or half a dozen beers on your home bar we can help.

I’m generally reluctant to share images of people’s private spaces but there’s some amazing creativity out there. These jobs are usually the same setup, a two product cooler with whatever product font the customer specifies and new gauges throughout. Sometimes they are new fonts, other times we might have some really nice used ones and we can adjust the price according to what we fit.

Badges can be a little bit bonkers so those Moretti ones can cost £25 if they need to be bought separately! We can usually supply those from stock though at no extra charge.

The expensive item is the cooler. Our ‘go to’ is the new two product hydrocarbon unit for home bar installs. These are compact, so perfect in a home bar setting where space is normally at a premium, and amazingly efficient at getting down to temperature. The downside of these is the lead time, the manufacturer is currently giving us a lead time of 12 weeks which is an awful long time to wait. Our workaround for that is to install one of our rental units and switch it out when the new cooler arrives; again we never look to charge for that.

We always specify a two product cooler even when the customer is only looking for a single product setup for their home bar. There are a couple of very good reasons for this. Firstly, the single product unit only develops 2.2kg of ice whereas the two out produces 5kg. A 5kg ice bank is going to keep up with most home bar settings, 2.2kg might start to struggle with prolonged use or warm weather. It’s also future proofing; it’s very simple to add a second product to your home bar if the cooler has a second coil.

There’s no compromise right through our home bar setups. We always fit secondary regulators as well as primaries, we never fit used regulators, and we warranty everything for 12 months.

If the customer is trying to work to a price then we will try to work with them, if we have a good used cooler available for instance, but even when we fit a used cooler we put a 12 month warranty on it ourselves.

Price wise, we are looking at £1200 or so for a full home bar setup. There are cheaper options out there and if price is your only criteria then we are probably not the right supplier for you. If you want a local company that will do what they say they’re going to do and will stand behind their work then maybe that’s us.