Looking for a creative idea for a draft beer system for your hotel, bar or restaurant?
Learn how to turn a standard back bar equipment into a fashionable, remote, air-cooled draft beer system.
THE HISTORY OF KEGERATORS IN COMMERCIAL BAR DESIGN
Some hotel, bar and restaurant owners have turned to kegerators as an alternative to a glycol draft beer dispensing system.
When it comes to kegerators, not much has changed over the years – but that’s becoming a problem, in light of the emergence of craft beer. Although this style of bar equipment is reliable, it hasn’t been good for commercial bar design because traditional kegerators are 29” deep – which doesn’t conform to the world of 24” underbar stainless bar equipment. The other problem is that they don’t have fashionable, multiple-faucet beer towers. Not to worry, because I have a work-around for you!
Consider the following design example of a hotel bar. Although I believe glycol draft beer systems are the best investment of any draft
beer system (ref. to my earlier post, listed below), they sometimes don't prove to be the best, most cost-effective solutions for some existing hotels, bars and restaurants, due to limited locations for walk-in coolers and therefore, extremely long trunklines and many physical obstacles.
If you want to serve 8-10 varieties of craft beer and desire remote draft beer towers, but don’t want to invest in a glycol draft beer system, consider the alternative we used for this bar design. I turned to a little-known bar design
secret – adapting a standard built-in backbar cooler. This type of cooler is 24” deep, can house eight brands of beer and is readily available. For this application I used the following bar equipment:
- Glastender BB84 backbar coolers.
- Glastender LGT8, 8-faucet beer towers.
It’s very important to note that the beer tower used for this application needs to be designed for air-cooled draft beer systems; glycol towers will not work for this.
Also needed are the tubing and regulators for connecting eight brands of beer and a CO2 gas cylinder to complete the process – the same as any draft beer system. The Owner chose to have the draft beer towers remotely-mounted to the front bar top; this means that the kegerators shown here will act as remote air-cooled draft beer systems, which is feasible, given that the beer towers are only five feet from each kegerator (ref. to my earlier post, listed below); to achieve this, some 4” schedule 40 PVC will be necessary to act as the “shaft”.
Although no companies are currently marketing the idea of “off-the-shelf” built-in kegerators with remote towers, you can purchase anybody’s built-in backbar cooler and incorporate the above concept (Perlick and Beverage Air manufacture similar coolers and those cut sheets can be found at the end of this post).
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DOWNLOADS FOR THIS POST:
BEVERAGE AIR BACKBAR COOLER CUT SHEET:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovwpmrctg0p00bz/BEVERAGE%20AIR%20BACKBAR%20COOLER%20CUT%20SHEET.pdf?dl=0
GLASTENDER BACKBAR COOLERS CUT SHEET:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5hff1d6dqeorc9/GLASTENDER%20BACKBAR%20COOLERS%20CUT%20SHEET.pdf?dl=0
GLASTENDER LIONS GATE DRAFT BEER TOWER CUT SHEET:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5ve0uv16f5on07/GLASTENDER%20LIONS%20GATE%20DRAFT%20BEER%20TOWER.pdf?dl=0
PERLICK BBS BACKBAR COOLERS CUT SHEET:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cju6zf26a69ce87/PERLICK%20BBS%20BACKBAR%20COOLER%20CUT%20SHEET.pdf?dl=0
PERLICK DDS SELF-CONTAINED BUILT-IN KEGERATORS CUT SHEET:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/odxmb91o13jwpx9/PERLICK%20DDS-Series-Self-Contained-Direct-Draw%20Coolers.pdf?dl=0
POPULAR DOWNLOADS:
STANDARD BAR CLEARANCES w/ADA:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pnjarjnonq0d7t/UNIVERSAL%20BAR%20CLEARANCES%20w_ADA.pdf?dl=0
CUSTOM DRINK RAIL DESIGN:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tj9wr1gp4kolbqa/CUSTOM%20DRINK%20RAIL%20DESIGN.pdf?dl=0
BAR AND RESTAURANT SEATING GUIDELINES:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lwni53dohpc4hbd/BAR%20AND%20RESTAURANT%20SEATING%20GUIDELINES.jpg?dl=0
