Bar & Pub Cellar, Keg & Gas Checklist
A Bar & Pub cellar checklist controls four things: temperature from keg to glass, keg and cask age, gas supply and cellar safety, and the hygiene of everything the beer touches on its way out. These 8 checks cover all four with a three-times-daily temperature log, and each is backed by published evidence - the Brewers Association's 34–38°F (1–3°C) keg-to-glass standard, Cask Marque's 11–13°C (52–55°F) cellar band, and its finding that one in four pubs had a major temperature issue in a single year. Cellar temperature is not the same as serve temperature, which is why the checklist makes you probe the pint, not the room.
The checklist · 8 checks
Temperature from keg to glass
1. Write down the cellar and keg cold store temperature at opening, mid-shift, and closing.Beer held at the wrong temperature pours cloudy, foams at the tap, and tastes flat. That is the fastest way to lose a regular draught customer.
2. Check that the python (trunk line) cooler and its pump are running, and that the line is cold at the font.A cold cellar with a broken python still serves a warm pint. The last few metres of line decide if you win or lose the sale.
3. Before service starts, check the temperature of the first pour on each line against its serving target.Serving temperature is what the customer actually tastes. One degree off can mean a returned pint.
Kegs, casks and gas
4. Check tap-on dates against your sell-through window, and take off anything past itA keg left on gas too long pours slow and flat. Every pint from it is worse than what the brewer made.
5. Read and log the gas cylinder contents or pressure. Change cylinders before service starts, never during it.Running out of gas at your busiest time stops every draught line at once. It also causes foam in the first pints after you change the cylinder.
6. Before you enter the cellar, check the ventilation is running and the CO2 alarm reads clear.CO2 has no smell and collects near the floor. A leaking cellar can hurt someone before it costs you any money.
Cellar hygiene and line condition
7. Clean and sanitise keg couplers, cask taps, spears, and the cellar floor and drains.The coupler is the first thing beer touches after it leaves the keg. A dirty coupler can dirty a freshly cleaned line again within days.
8. Write down when each beer line was installed. Put its replacement date in your diary.Old tubing holds bacteria (biofilm) that survives even a strong clean (caustic). You cannot scrub your way out of an old line.
Frequently asked questions
What temperature should a beer cellar be?For kegged beer, the Brewers Association standard is that beer travelling from keg to glass is maintained at 34–38°F (about 1–3°C); for cask ale, Cask Marque's cellar standard is 11–13°C (52–55°F). When it is actually served, the targets differ again: cask ale 11–13°C (52–55°F), lager and keg 5–8°C (41–46°F), and extra cold 1–4°C (34–39°F), all with a leeway of ±1°C. Getting this wrong is common and expensive - Cask Marque reported one in four pubs with a major temperature issue in the year covered, and 6% of all pints served too warm, equating to 208 million pub pints annually.
How long can a keg stay on tap?Cask Marque's guidance is that kegs should sell within 5 days, so anything past your own sell-through window comes off rather than being poured slowly to regulars. The mechanism that breaks this is carrying more brands than you can turn over: Cask Marque's 2016 reporting states that pubs on average overstock by 5 brands per pub, which leaves slow lines standing between cleans. That matters because a Journal of the Institute of Brewing survey of 237 keg beers from 57 pubs and bars found 65% had picked up some kind of bacteria damage (microbiological) from being poured - damage done in the cellar and the line, not the brewery.
How often do beer lines need replacing, not just cleaning?Track the installation age of every line, because cleaning stops working as tubing ages. Miller, Buckingham-Meyer and Goeres measured the bacteria layer (biofilm) at 5.6 Log10 CFU/cm² on new vinyl tubing compared with 6.6 Log10 CFU/cm² on tubing aged to simulate five years of use; cleaning with a strong alkaline (caustic) solution cut living bacteria below 2.75 Log10 CFU/cm², but the bacteria layer on the aged tubing grew back to 3.6 Log10 CFU/cm² within 24 hours. Nearly ten times as much (a full order of magnitude) regrowth in a single day means old line needs either a shorter cleaning cycle or replacement - it is not a scrubbing problem.
More Bar & Pub checklists
One free app has all of them: open the Bar & Pub Checklists app - offline, no account, add it to your home screen.
Sources
Every statistic on this page comes from public inspection and food-safety data:
- Journal of the Institute of Brewing & Distilling, 'Draught beer hygiene: a survey of on-trade quality'
- Cask Marque Beer Quality Report 2017
- Brewers Association, Draught Beer Quality Manual
- Cask Marque, 'Beer quality issues'
- Chartered Trading Standards Institute, 'Over two thirds of UK beer and wine is short measured'
- Cask Marque, 'Scores on the Cellar Doors' launch, citing Quality Report 2016
- ACFE, Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations
- Toomey et al., 'Can Obviously Intoxicated Patrons Still Easily Buy Alcohol at On-Premise Establishments?'
- Toomey et al., 'Alcohol sales to pseudo-intoxicated bar patrons', Public Health Reports
- NHTSA, Countermeasures That Work - Alcohol Vendor Compliance Checks
- Ohio Administrative Code 3717-1-04.4
- FDA Report on the Occurrence of Foodborne Illness Risk Factors
- Journal of Water and Health
- Food Safety Magazine, 'The Sanitation of Ice-Making Equipment', citing NSF/ANSI 12-2012
- Miller, Buckingham-Meyer & Goeres, 'Simulated aging of draught beer line tubing increases biofilm contamination'
- Brewers Association, 'Economics of Draught Quality' November Power Hour Q&A
- British Guild of Beer Writers, analysis of Food Standards Agency FHRS data
This is the manual version
PeakScale Ops runs checks like these automatically across 2,000+ outlets. See the real thing →