?? 4 brew pubs that offer black & tans

[bmxfrank]

If you offer B&T's, whats your line up like? How many lines do you have? Is your stout a nitro dry irish style? and do you ever change the stout to another style that may not allow you to offer the B&T, i.e. milk stout, american stout, etc.

I currently have 7 lines. We want to offer a stout full time now but I fear I will also now need to always have some type of amber on also. The addition of these 2 beers means two less lines of rotation which is what I feel makes us successful.

AMERICAN PALE, LIGHT, IPA, STOUT, AMBER/ENGLISH PALE, 2 others. BORING!!

It also means I cannot offer the oatmeal and milk stout that have become popular. If I do that on occasion then I alienate our nitro style dry stout drinkers. I know what you are thinking, if its this much trouble why bother changing. Two words, new management. Theyre changing the theme so I gotta change with it. I just feel with only 7 lines its gonna be hard. Anyway, thoughts, advice, etc. Thanks.

Frank

[MikeRoy]

I don't brew a year around stout (as in one style always on tap), instead I choose to rotate stouts. In the past year we've poured Dry Stout,Milk Stout,Pumpkin Pie Stout and Oatmeal Stout all on our nitro line. We are also currently pouring Imperial Stout(not nitro)...personally I don't care for Imperial Stouts on nitro.

Question: Why try to change what has been successfully with customers to accommodate a new theme?

Its been my experience that you WILL NEVER make every customer happy. You have to do what's best for the majority. Recently I had a woman say to me " Why do you ruin all MY stouts by putting them on nitro?"....I smiled and said "I'm sorry if it doesn't appeal to you." I then walked away and told my intern the reason why we offer the majority of our stouts on nitro is that 95% of our stout drinkers prefer it that way. Maybe its a bad thing if customers are conditioned to drink stout via nitro taps, but you can't argue with what people like and where they spend their money.

Frank, we recently talked about guest beers, maybe this is the perfect opportunity for you. Let's say you're not currently brewing a Dry Stout, why not order some kegs of Dry Stout from another brewery, serve it on your nitro line and serve your Oatmeal/Milk from your other line? You might slightly cannibalize sales but maybe you can make more people happy.

[bmxfrank]

good points, anyone else

Mike,

good points. My questions to you would be: do all of those stouts float for black and tans? If so I can switch it up but I know my Oatmeal is big and chewy and isnt floating on anything. Also, Ive had your pumpkin stout in the bottle. If its nitro, how?

As for why change, I dont want to be the irish pub that cant make a black and tan. As much as it can be a dilima the irish theme is a challange I want to conquor. I just dont know how many irish-themed brew pubs there are, and wondering if this is why.

Maybe just float it on a "heavy" golden ale and strcikly serve "half-n-half" The term black and tan has negative notes in Ireland anyway.

As for the guest tap, its less of an issue and I know how stouts sell with us. Dry irish is the slowest. Its not as interesting and I cant do growlers. If we become more "irish" perhaps we will bring in more of that clientele so it may pick up. Other stouts do better, American being the best since its hoppy and we have alot of hop heads. You know Rolph, I have a bunch more like him. My best selling stout was my Breakfast Stout, which was a mini-mistake of my first Russian Imperial attempt.

[Fennellys]

Well here is my 2 cents from an Irish Pub trying to get its brewing operations up and running. Some customers will be cool with having a brewed Irish stout, then you will have some people who will accost you for being Irish themed and not having Guinness on tap. Also you will probably get accosted and told how stupid you are for not serving a B&T the right why (with Guinness and Bass). At my pub I made a decision when we opened to serve serve our B&T with Guinness and Harp. I have been actually yelled at several times (never yelling back though) on how I was just stupid and wrong to call any thing but a Guinness & Bass a B&T. I even went as far as making a "Story of black & tans" in my flip menus of all of our beers and such and people still have their very strong opinions, strong enough to deface our menu's.

Sorry I have not given any real answers to you question but I would just say to brew the beer the way you want and be honest why you did what you did. Most people will accept it and heck with the people who won't, they are too uptight with their beer.

Oh yeah, as far as floating the stout on top of your clearer beer, I have found many references to serving B&T;s mixed and not floated. So again that just reinforces the make a great beer and serve it without apologies.