Page 40 - It's a Rum Life Book One "In the Beginning 1947 to 1960"

Every day after school I stacked all the shelves behind the
bar with bottled beer and soft drinks, and then moved down to
the cellar and ensured the barrelled beer was adequate and ‘fit’
for the next day’s potential clients. This involved tapping barrels
before they were brought into use, inserting the tap through the
bottom bung hole with the aid of a wooden mallet by striking it
swiftly and cleanly to prevent any loss of beer through the bung
as it was knocked inwards.
The beer then had time to settle again before being brought
into use thereby preventing ‘cloudy beer’.
(It took ages to find a picture of proper beer barrels with two
access holes. One in the top for venting and the hole at one end
where the tap is fitted.)
The threaded end of the tap is connected to rigid and hinged
galvanised pipes that lead up to the beer engine on the bar.

(Picture of traditional
Beer Engine arrangement.
We had three pumps and
the beer was Steward and
Patterson from Spalding.)

The entire weekly pipe
cleaning was down to me
too. The ‘old fashioned’
beer pumps or ‘engines’
were connected to the
barrels with long hinged
galvanised metal pipes. If these were not cleaned religiously
every week with hot caustic soda, then the beer flavour was
tainted by stale residues in the pipes themselves. We always had
good beer!

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