Comments on: Where are our Beverage Service Droids?

By: Des de Moor

Des de Moor — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:07:49 +0000

I was going to mention the Thirsty Bear too but johng beat me to it. I’ve also seen pics of places in Japan where there are push button beer dispensers at every table, complementing those kaiten conveyor belts that bring the sushi round.

I think the other reason why we have less push button retailing today than was predicted in the 1950s and 1960s is that it doesn’t eliminate the need for supervision, both for when things go wrong and in making sure that people don’t cheat the system, as can clearly be seen with those self service supermarket checkouts. A pub that normally has a couple of bar staff on duty would probably need to maintain this level of staffing even if installed self service, both to supervise and to collect glasses etc, on top of the additional complications and maintenance costs of an automatic system, so it doesn’t make much economic sense.

Having said that, I can recall being in the Bridge House, Belfast, during a Wetherspoon festival when customers were being invited to help themselves from an extra bank of handpumps to the side of the bar, and simply trusted to pay in advance!

By: johng

johng — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 20:37:57 +0000

London has a semi-robotic bar called the Thirsty Bear se1.Operated by the Robot Pub co.You register when you go in and are a swipe card.you use an ipad to order food – play the jukebox and you have your own beer tap on your table to help yourself.Big snag is its keg and it def isnt craft.

By: Coxy

Coxy — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:52:28 +0000

are you telling me all these east europearn lovelies in the London pubs are real, I thought they were automatons, especially as they don’t seem to be able to define “craft beer” for me.

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:02:36 +0000

There is this, of course. I vaguely recall reading about such a system being installed in some trendy bar in this country.

By: The Beer Nut

The Beer Nut — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:36:53 +0000

Button dispense was standard when I first went to Denmark in 2005. I haven’t noticed it subsequently, but that’s mostly because I’ve been in more specialist beer geek pubs. I’ll be back in a few weeks and will check if it’s still the normal way you get your Carlsberg in Copenhagen.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:24:12 +0000

That’s the one. As Tandleman says, even beer that could easily be dispensed by pressing a big red shiny button is still being delivered through something that looks like a miniature handpump, accompanied in many cases by a lot of faffing around from the bar staff.

Mind you, big red shiny buttons have never really caught on anywhere else in the world, so there is that.

By: Bailey

Bailey — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:08:51 +0000

The push-button pump, rather than the robot barman?

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:02:46 +0000

You’ve got a point. When I said that automation had been stopped in its tracks by CAMRA, I of course meant… er… something quite similar but true. I’ll let you know when I remember what it was.

By: Cookie

Cookie — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 13:11:07 +0000

Preventing under aged sales might have some part to play.

Some cool links to previous post, too. I guess I was wrong. Not all of this blog is tosh. One or two bits of it have been okay.

By: Tandleman

Tandleman — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 10:33:28 +0000

The handpump is a sign of perceived quality though. Isn’t that why all tap handles these days slightly resemble one? In the seventies keg founts just had a black knob on stainless steel.