Milwaukee has dirty taps: Bad beer in Brew City

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a good article in today's paper and online about unclean beer tap lines in bars and restaurants in Milwaukee. Please Milwaukee bars and restaurants - clean your beer lines! Especially you, Judges Irish Pub!

I clean my Haier Kegorator beer lines between each keg. That's probably too long because things can get smelly and sticky, especially when you're drinking good, unpasteurized beer. And if we don't have a lot of visitors at the time it can take us a month to finish a keg.

Illinois apparently has a law that says bars have to clean their beer lines once per week. I support that.

Wisconsin doesn't have that law. Instead, the health codes state that the lines be cleaned "at a frequency specified by the manufacturer" or "a frequency necessary to preclude accumulation of soil or mold." Yuck.

The Beer State should definitely have higher standards than the Fib state, come on!

Russ Klisch, president of Milwaukee-based awesome Lakefront Brewery, said he has been talking with other brewers about initiating a tap cleaning certification program to ensure the work is being done properly.

I'm for it. Let's get it done ASAP.

The article said that Hooligans Super Bar had clean tap lines. That makes me happy. I bet Roman's Pub does too because Roman really cares about good beer. (I would recommend Roman's to anybody, by the way).

I hope the new Sugar Maple bar opening soon in Bay View (that will have 50 beers on tap) will clean their lines regularly, because I plan to go there often.