Brewers have begun brewing and pubs and bars across England are preparing for the first day of the return of the sorely missed trade. Today is the day, April 12th, the day that eating and drinking establishments across England welcome back customers, albeit outside for now. As part of our new series, the road out of lockdown, each week we will talk about some of our top tools to make sure everything is in fine working order for potentially the busiest summer these isles have ever seen!
We started with tables, and one of our most popular tools for keeping them stable, this week with freshly filled casks flowing up and down the country, we look at one of our longest-standing pieces, the Abbot tap.
A cask ale tap is the best way of dispensing real ale out of a barrel and the Abbot tap makes it as easy as can be. As anyone who has tapped a cask of ale will tell you, taps require a good whacking in order to penetrate the keystone and fight the pressure of the escaping ale.
As a result the Abbot tap is born from a robust design, with no brittle or cheap plastic. As long as you are using a rubber mallet, the tap wont crack or break when correctly whacked into the barrel. More importantly, once firmly in place, our Abbot tap should be entirely leak proof, ensuring every drop of that golden nectar is going into a customers glass and not down the drain.
As you can see in the above image, there are also a few more subtle design elements to the Abbot cask ale tap. The ridges along the whole length of the shaft will ensure that when tapped into the barrel via the keystone (wooden or plastic), the tap will both go in and come out of the keystone very easily compared to other cask ale taps. Furthermore, you will also see a number of small holes towards the end of the shaft of the tap, this allows the tap to source ale from the depths of the barrel when the level of the ale is getting low, therefore ensuring as little wastage as possible.
There is also a little nut at the end of the tap that can be easily screwed off, this allows a tap brush to be fed up the inside of the tap so you can keep your cask ale taps clean with ease. However, everyone’s favourite feature is in fact the tap mechanism itself!
For over 30 years, we have received constant feedback that the smooth and easy to operate nature of the tap (or valve) is why people love the Abbot. This is often a criticism of cask ale taps, that over time the valve becomes stiff and leaky, and as a result, a unique and easy to maintain mechanism has always been a priority of the Abott’s design.
Our cask ale taps come in both a single and a double version (pictured above). The double-tap version is perfect for those establishments with multiple bars. All of our cask ale taps come in three separate thread types: L Thread, Y Thread and 3/4 BSP Thread. Supporting elements such as the Hose Tail and a Spile, are also available if required.
