Getting Lit: It's Not Just For Patrons Anymore

How forward looking is The PubScout? This post is from June 21, 1997.

And with the recent news about tap handles that light up, it bears a bit of reminiscence. I know it's tough to ask you to read TWO columns in one day, but if nothing else, it proves the old saw that "Everything old is new again."

So give this ancient history a read. Then move to the one on this very site entitled "Getting Lit: Again."

As my banner says, I have been "Immersed in the Craft Beer Scene Since 1996." Here's proof.

Many sociologists fear the reclusiveness that the computer age is threatening to bring upon us as millions stay glued to their monitors rather than go out and talk to real people. Even the Harley Davidson website, which greets you with the sound of rumbling engines, chastises you (mildly, considering Harley's image) for being online at their site when you could be out on a Hog on the open road.

Bars and taverns have served as gathering places for convivial folks for five thousand years. TV shows (Cheers) have recognized the need for that socialization, and part of its success is based on the fact that viewer is himself a participating patron in TV's most famous bar. Jackie Gleason used to do a superb schtick with Joe the Bartender that also used the same principle.

And thanks to those ever-present, creative entrepreneurs associated with the beer industry, bars will remain magnets well into the future. Take this bit of news from--of all places--New Zealand.

Some guy has discovered a way to illuminate beer tap handles. According to the cyberspace report, the glowing tap handles will be introduced in selected pubs within a month by Brewer Lion Nathan. Mr. Nathan, through sheer genius (and probably a wealth of free time) has conquered the sticky problem of running electrical wires in close proximity to liquid. The "Beacon of the Bar," as the tap handle is called, is powered by 24 volts of electricity "transmitted to the handle from a power source inside the tap mounting."

Bar accoutrements--call them gimmicks, if you like--are nothing new. Beer signs, mirrors, candelabra and other pub decor have graced the walls of many an establishment. Most of the eye-catchers are simply advertising and are given to bars as “gifts” which help to plant subtle and not-so subtle suggestions as to what the patron should be drinking. Creative advertising folks know full well the power of such suggestion.

But to date, no one has lit up your tap handles to capture your coin. How popular the new illuminated tap handles will be remains to be seen, but if the fad catches on, it could permanently change the ambience of pubs to come.

You can bet also your bottom dollar that many quaffers will try a lit-up draft at least once, just for the heck of it. If it does work, will the major and minor brewers be far behind in powering up all their handles? No brewer wants his competitor's handle to outshine his, either in design or in lumens.

Getting "juiced" or "lit" it seems has always been a one way affair. No longer. But pubs might possibly become brighter places with this innovation. The added lustre could reflect more accurately the features of a current conversation partner, which, in turn, might help patrons make wiser, um, decisions that might not look so good in the next day's sunshine.

Lights or not, the allure of the pub is probably as firmly ingrained in the human psyche as the allure of the flaming hearth, which strikes an internal chord in all of us calling us to its glow.

Just one question remains in the eyes of microbrew lovers. Does the new invention give an unfair advantage to "Light" beers?

Only until you taste them.