Monitor your progress with Brulines

Think you know about beer, and beer sales in your pub?

You might do - but if you're given the chance to run your beer output through Brulines' brand quality monitoring (BQM) system you might get a sense of what you've been missing.

All of the licensees involved in Sell More, Save More have a much better handle on the ins and outs of the category after the installation of the systems earlier this year.

The freehouses on the project - rural pubs the Cross Keys in Henley, Suffolk, and the Rose & Crown in Perry Wood, Kent, together with community pubs the Priory Arms in Stockwell, London, and the Guide Dog in Southampton - have now been getting weekly email reports on their beer sales for six months.

The information can also be accessed on the internet from anywhere in the country - and the licensees are using it to gain a better understanding of their beer volumes, temperatures and flow rates than they've ever had before.

Know your lines​

Graham Bulpett at the Priory Arms checks his Monday reports religiously to stay on top of his beer output - and to confirm that his line-cleaning regime is operating as it should.

The Priory is a serious beer house. Not only is it listed in the Good Beer Guide, but cask ale expert Annabel Smith, national account manager of our Sell More, Save More champion Cask Marque, said she wasn't sure how it could be improved on a visit earlier this year.

But Graham has found one way to make it better - with the use of Brulines' BQM system. "The system is complete fault-finding for your cellar - the amount of time it can save you is enormous," he says.

"It lets us know when the lines are due for cleaning, and if we miss one by accident it tells us immediately. The other week I accidentally missed cleaning the Amstel line and it told me straight away. The colour-coding on the reports helps us see exactly what is going on."

Graham also finds the level of detail the system provides invaluable. "It's remarkable how it can differentiate between beer, line-cleaning fluid and water," he says. "The system has come a long way in a short space of time."

The challenge now is to make fuller use of the data in conjunction with the EPoS kit.

"I've been informally comparing the EPoS figures with the Brulines data," adds Graham.

"It's very interesting to see how much beer has gone through compared to our stock reports. It's very useful for wastage and identifying where savings can be made."

The bigger picture ​

Beer is also a hugely important feature of the sales mix for Mark White, licensee of the Cross Keys - representing rural pubs in Sell More, Save More.

The pub is unconventional in its serving methods - serving cask ale straight from the cask in the cellar - and also offers a surprisingly large range of beers on both draught and keg.

Following the installation of the BQM system earlier in the year Mark has enjoyed interpreting the data with a view to making some long-term changes to his beer output in the new year.

"An EPoS system is liable to human error when people key the wrong thing in - but this is 100 per cent reliable," he says.

"I'm not obsessive with it, but we're looking at the data in the long term to make absolutely sure we have got the right range in place."

Following advice from some of the Sell More, Save More category champions, Mark is particularly keen to ensure that every brand on his bar is paying its way.

"We are checking wastage against profitability, and we are keen to work out whether it's right that we're selling Foster's and Carlsberg, Stella and Kronenbourg. Are we affecting our profitability by having too many beers?" says Mark. "We're also looking closely at things like whether we've got the optimum number of John Smith's taps."

Mark used the Brulines system in the past, and is now using the BQM in a variety of ways - particularly to ensure that his beer is in optimum condition and that the flow rate is appropriate.

He's also carried out his own comparisons with the EPoS system installed under Sell More, Save More to ensure that the figures tally - although he's been hampered by a problem with his laptop.

Once he's up and running with the online side again he'll be contacting Sell More, Save More project consultant Carl May and Cask Marque's Annabel Smith to get their opinions on his range.

"I'm likely to get someone to come in in the new year to change my entire tapping as a result," he says.

It will be another change for the Cross Keys, which has already seen an entire new menu brought in and a refurbishment since joining Sell More, Save More this year.

Like many licensees Mark feels he is running to stand still at the moment as he attempts to gain a better understanding of the direction his business, and the economy at large, will take in the next few months.

But he does think he has a better handle on his beer sales as a result of using the Brulines system.

"Brulines gets criticised for being the policeman of the trade, but I think it can help you be a policeman yourself and really keep a close eye on the business," he says.