Draught beer business explained for sales teams
Draught beer reaches the drinker through a keg, a cooler, a line and a tap that the brewery often owns but does not run. That makes draught a service business as much as a product one. This guide explains the parts a sales team needs to understand.
What sits behind the tap
A draught system has a few core parts. The keg holds the beer, commonly 30 or 50 litres in stainless steel. A gas supply, usually carbon dioxide or a CO2 and nitrogen mix, pushes beer out of the keg. A cooler chills the beer on its way to the tap. Lines carry it from the keg to the font on the bar, where the tap and faucet pour it into the glass.
In many markets, including India, the brewery or its distributor supplies and maintains this equipment in the outlet. That is a real investment. Coolers, fonts and lines cost money to install and service, so a draught account is a commitment for both sides, not just an order.
Freshness and temperature run the show
Draught beer is often unpasteurised or lightly treated, so it has a shorter life than packaged beer. Once a keg is tapped, the clock speeds up further. As a general rule, a keg of standard lager should be finished within a few days to a couple of weeks of tapping, depending on the beer and the system. Unopened kegs must be kept cold. A keg left in a hot storeroom in May will age quickly, even before it reaches the cooler.
Serving temperature for most lagers sits around 2 to 4 °C at the tap. Too warm and the beer foams excessively. Too cold and it tastes flat and dull. Excess foam is not just a nuisance. It is beer poured down the drain that the outlet has paid for, which quickly becomes a complaint about the brewery.
Line cleaning is the single biggest quality lever
Beer lines collect yeast, bacteria and a mineral deposit called beerstone over time. Dirty lines produce sour, buttery or stale flavours and cloudy beer. They also cause foaming. The common guidance in the draught trade is to clean lines with a beer line cleaner about every two weeks, with a deeper acid clean less often.
For a sales team this is the most important practical fact about draught. A drinker who gets a bad pint blames the brand on the tap, not the cleaning schedule. Many draught problems that arrive as quality complaints are line hygiene problems at the outlet. Our guide to beer off flavours describes what a dirty line tastes like.
The economics of a draught account
Draught usually gives the outlet a better margin per serve than bottles, because the brewery saves on glass, crowns, labels and cartons. For the brewery it shifts cost from packaging to equipment and service. The account needs enough throughput to justify the cooler and to keep the beer fresh.
Here is an illustrative calculation. A 50 litre keg yields about 150 serves of 330 ml in theory. If 10% is lost to foam, line flushing and the last bit in the keg, the outlet gets about 135. An outlet pouring 40 serves a night empties a keg in under four nights. One pouring 10 serves a night takes two weeks, which is at the edge of good freshness. The numbers are illustrative. The test is real: low throughput accounts struggle to serve fresh draught.
What a sales visit should check
A draught visit is more than taking an order. A practical checklist:
- Keg storage: cold, out of the sun, rotated so older kegs go first.
- Pour quality: clear beer, a proper head, no excess foam.
- Serving temperature at the tap.
- Line cleaning log: when were lines last cleaned and by whom?
- Glassware: clean glasses without grease, which kills the head.
- Keg returns: empties collected and counted, since kegs are valuable assets.
Keg tracking matters commercially. Lost kegs are expensive to replace. Accounts that hold empties too long tie up the brewery's fleet.
Draught in the pack mix
Draught is a small part of total beer volume in India compared with bottles and cans, but it has outsized influence in on-trade accounts, brewpubs and taprooms. It is where many drinkers first try a beer at its best. Our guides on pack mix in beer sales and trade spend and promotions show how draught fits alongside the other formats in reporting and investment.
Draught also gives sales teams a direct read on how a beer is received. Keg orders per outlet arrive weekly or faster, so a change in the rate of sale shows up long before bottle data from the off-trade does. A brand team launching a new beer often watches draught accounts first for that reason.
A first step: on your next three draught visits, ask to see the line cleaning record before you discuss the order. The answer will tell you more about that account's future than its last month of volume.
Common questions
How often should draught beer lines be cleaned?
The common trade guidance is about every two weeks with a beer line cleaner, plus a periodic acid clean to remove beerstone.
What temperature should draught lager be served at?
Most lagers pour well at around 2 to 4 °C at the tap. Warmer beer foams and colder beer tastes dull.
How long does a keg last once tapped?
It depends on the beer and system, but standard draught lager is best finished within a few days to a couple of weeks of tapping.
Why does draught beer foam too much?
Common causes are beer that is too warm, dirty lines, wrong gas pressure or poorly balanced lines. Excess foam wastes beer the outlet paid for.
