Another plus of the system is, besides the beer being kept cooler, the temperature of the carbon dioxide is also constant, which means the pressure does not need to be adjusted according to the temperature difference over the four seasons.
One fan of the system is Big Bamboo boss Bryce Jenner. The Canadian installed the system in his Nanyang Road outlet following a hectic 2006 FIFA World Cup, and then built cold rooms in his next two outlets in Pudong's Jinqiao and Hongqiao area.
"I'm catering to a Western audience, and Westerners like to have our beer cold. The colder the better," Jenner says.
Another thing is efficiency, and that's a big thing. "(Other systems) take a lot of room behind the bar, and it's messy - when the place has 700 people in there and you're going through a keg in 10 minutes, you have to carry a warm keg from the backroom through the crowd and it's ridiculous. When you have a keg room, it's kept cold and you don't have to carry any product through the bar," Jenner adds.
Why then don't new bars all rush to install the more advanced system? The first reason is space. Cool rooms take up space that many places would rather fit more paying customers into. The Boxing Cat, for example, employs a cool room in its Minhang District outlet, but goes with a more space-efficient refrigeration solution in its downtown store.
Another barrier is cost. A typical Cornelius set-up costs about 150,000 yuan, compared with about 10,000 yuan for an under-the-counter system. This is further compounded by beer companies often installing the latter for free in exchange for exclusivity. As any start-up will tell you, getting something for nothing is often ideal.
Jenner, however, believes his system, which cost between 150,000 and 180,000 yuan depending on venue, to be a worthy investment.
"I wanted to offer a better product, and I thought it was worth it. I didn't do it just for economic reasons but (also) for function. It looks good. When people come here, I'm sure one of the things they notice when they get their beer is 'Wow, this place isn't cheap.' (A Carlsberg, for example, costs 40 yuan). We're certainly not cheap, but look at our washrooms, our TVs, our pool table ... the old system just looked a little bit worn and cheap."
(Shanghai Daily June 18, 2009)
