Who's responsible for dirty beer lines?

So the consumer blows the whistle to the bartender, most likely. The bartender is busy serving drinks. A bartender that cares about his or her job takes care to make sure that the lines are good to go, or that the cleaning schedule is being maintained, yes? Or, the bartender informs a manager of the complaint. And upward we go.......all the way to the people brewing the beer, eventually. If SN, Stone, BBC, etc... gets a complaint about bad beer what should they do, if anything? A service call would be my answer.
Just asking, I realize you know a whole lot more about beer than I do... It's way past my nap time, I'll check back with all of this in the pm. Thanks.

 

I know a brewer who has dirty lines in his brewpub. If he doesn't care, who does?

 

If the Brewers Associated gave all the good bars an "Accredited" sign they could put on the front window, it would stop a lot of this unprofessionalism real fast.

 

My remedy for all of the above, less frequent trips out. My house is a cheaper & more controlled environment for drinking GOOD beer, craft or otherwise. I don't disagree with you, I'm just giving an alternative. I know here in NE Ohio of at least 3 different companies that I see around that do nothing but clean tap lines @ bars.

 

In short, the owner of the beer lines.

 

Simple, you find the places that don't have this problem and support them, or just drink at home.

I have no problem doing either where I live.

 

Bad beer lines are the problem of the establishment with the bad beer lines. When I get a product served from a bad beer line I send it back and tell the server why. If it happens too often, I get up and go to another bar.

 

Never had a problem with beer lines, out of date beer yes but if dirty lines are your problem then don't go back to that bar or don't order draft.

 

The really good places clean their own lines. beer is a food product, not a bartering chip.

 

Unfortunately, the laws regarding who can clean tap lines are different all over the country. My brewery was self distributed up until recently (we passed the barrel threshold in AZ for self distributed) and we were fanatical about cleaning our tap lines. We had two employees who were full time draft techs and cleaned our dedicated lines at every account. But here and in other states, it is the responsibility of the distributor to clean lines. The bar owner can clean their lines (and the good ones do), but not many places are going to take the time to do it when they're told their distributor took care of it. When I worked at a beer bar back in CA, we had 35 rotating taps, and some distributors would only clean the lines their product was on... You can see how frustrating this was to explain to them, but most of them don't care as much because they have so many accounts to clean in a day. We eventually started cleaning our own lines to make sure they all got done regularly. The brewery I'm at now makes sure that their accounts are cleaned the right way and my boss rides along with our distributor's draft techs once a month to see them work, but even if they did a bad job of it, we wouldn't have much recourse to force them to do it right. In most states it's nearly impossible for a brewery to leave their distributor contract. The brewery should absolutely do all they can to ensure clean lines, but the legal responsibility usually falls on distributors, and some are much better than others.

 

Craft beer is a great -- and great American -- creation. If the French can do this with their great wine, what, are they somehow BETTER than we are? Let's not wimp out on this.

 

I couldn't disagree with this more. Many craft brewers go to great lengths and work extremely hard to QA/QC their products. To expect them to ensure their beer is being served properly at every single establishment it's being served at, and calling them "pompous" for not doing so, is completely unreasonable. It is the responsibility of the establishment to clean their draught lines. I'm sure if you told a brewer that their beer was not being served properly or somehow being compromised they would have a big problem with it.

 

The owners of tap rooms, bars and brewery tasting rooms are the ones who are responsible for their beer lines being clean. If they can't keep their lines clean and their equipment in good running shape then I can see the actual brewery pulling their beers from those establishments (although they probably wouldn't pull their own beers from their own tasting rooms). Ideally, owners that are pouring the beer should know about proper cleaning and storage...sadly some of them have no clue. But, to blame the Craft brewer for how their beer is served, if it's served in a poor way, is a little ridiculous.

 

Somebody should take a deep breath......

If the bar you frequent has dirty lines, don't frequent it. To call a brewery "Pompous" because every time someone puts their keg on they aren't running over there (sometimes states away) and swabbing the line is a bit out of line.

 

I work for an AB distributor and we provide line cleaning services at no extra charge. Depending on the volume accounts get service every 1-2 weeks.

 

Are you talking about the breweries not cleaning their own lines or bars who are selling the beer not cleaning their lines. To be honest your initial post was a little long, so I only skimmed it. I think most breweries have sense to clean their lines, while bars, that's a whole other story.