Beer, delivered via water pipes?

September 14, 2006 2:12 PM

I seem to remember hearing about a brewery in a European city using old utility pipes to deliver beer directly into peoples' houses. Did I make that up? A friend thinks so, and I agree: it sounds too good to be true. Has anybody else heard this?
posted by Alt F4 to grab bag (14 comments total)

Forgive my non-engineering, non-bartending mind, but wouldn't that wreck havoc on the carbonation?
posted by huskerdont at 2:15 PM on September 14, 2006

Wikipedia sez:

Beer pipelines
Bars in the Veltins-Arena, a major football ground in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are interconnected by a 5 km long beer pipeline. It is the favourite method for distributing beer in such large stadiums, because the bars have to overcome big differences between demands during various stages of a match; this allows them to be supplied by a central tank.
posted by beagle at 2:17 PM on September 14, 2006

I think there was a story in the past year or so about a woman who turned her water taps on only to find beer coming out. It was because construction in the building had mixed her pipes with a either a brewer or a bar, I forget. Might that be what you're thinking of? I'll see if I can find the article.
posted by bibbit at 2:17 PM on September 14, 2006

bibbit's on to it. i recall the same...
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:18 PM on September 14, 2006

It wasn't a brewery and it was an accident but do you mean this?
posted by snownoid at 2:19 PM on September 14, 2006

You may have made it up, but it might have been triggered by the story some months ago where a woman in Norway turned on her faucet and got beer instead of water.
posted by jclovebrew at 2:20 PM on September 14, 2006

Doh! Snownoid beat me to it!
posted by jclovebrew at 2:20 PM on September 14, 2006

More here.
posted by popcassady at 2:21 PM on September 14, 2006

And yeah, the story Snownoid linked to is what I was thinking about.
posted by bibbit at 2:21 PM on September 14, 2006

I seemed to recall a story about someone tapping into a pipe at the Guiness factory in Dublin - but my pathetic googling doesn't show anything up. This would have been very much without consent...
posted by prentiz at 2:21 PM on September 14, 2006

Perhaps you read this discussion on the Usenets.
posted by Neiltupper at 2:24 PM on September 14, 2006

Snownoid's article nailed it. Beagle's trivia about the stadium was great, too (5km!), but not what I was thinking of. And Neiltupper's link is good, showing how a beer utility would have security issues.

wouldn't that wreck havoc on the carbonation ... yup. The article snownoid linked to said the beer ended up being flat.

Thanks, all.
posted by Alt F4 at 2:37 PM on September 14, 2006

During Prohibition, a secret rubber hose pipeline through the sewers sneaked beer from a brewery to a warehouse where it could be packaged and shipped.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 3:27 PM on September 14, 2006

This café in Antwerp has a direct pipeline to the nearby De Koninck brewery. Is that what you're thinking of?
posted by NekulturnY at 1:46 AM on September 15, 2006