Cellar to Glass: Glycol cooling

Imagine your refrigeration needs run off of a single remote cooler - and free hot water into the bargain. That's not science fiction. There is, in fact, already one pub in the UK that's doing just this - although there are two coolers in case something goes wrong.

The secret is glycol, a coolant already widely used in flash chillers to provide extra cold beers for pub customers all over the country.

The difference, though, is that the glycol is used in powerful remote coolers. And instead of under-bar chillers that take up valuable glass space and warm up barstaff, a slim aluminium heat exchanger brings the beer in the glass down to a temperature of 2ºC.

Kegs are stored in a specially insulated room chilled from the same remote cooler and bottles, too, can be quickly chilled and held at a similar temperature. Another device uses the heat from the beer to provide the pub with constant hot water.

The system, called EcoBev, comes from an American-Japanese company called Lancer-Hoshizaki - which wishes the pub in question to remain anonymous. Lancer-Hoshizaki is already making its mark here by introducing glycol-based draught beer cooling across the 700-pub J D Wetherspoon estate.

"These kind of systems are already in Ireland - and we have been running our own in 12,000 outlets in Australia for the past decade," says Lancer's European beer sales manager Mike Hickman. "Glycol coolers are really powerful and have 12 times the capacity of a traditional ice-bath remote cooler on the same footprint."

In one Regent Inns' Walkabout pub with 107 beer taps, for example, 23 traditional coolers have been replaced by three glycol coolers which ensure beer is served at two degrees - compared to between 6º and 8º previously. Lancer has also been working with Mitchells & Butlers, the country's largest managed house chain.

According to Mike, pubs can save around a third of energy costs using glycol - even without the enhanced EcoBev system.

He is still waiting for the first audit from the trial EcoBev pub, "but I'm confident we'll find it has made a big impact on reducing energy consumption," he says.

"An average pub has 15 different refrigeration units. That's just multiplying the risk of failure. All the EcoBev system needs is a six-monthly check up by a refrigeration engineer."