Those of you who may have nearly fallen down our cellar in the last couple of months might have noticed that work has been going on down below. Those of you who only came out at night might have thought why are the ales running out so regularly and occasionally a few of you have noticed that a few of the beers have been bright. Additionally there might have been the smell of paint. And only once beer coming out at 23ºC.
The reason for this is that we have had a problem for several years in that we have been victims of our own success. The cellar in the pub is of about 28 square metres and even in the quiet times of the year we often had beer stacked up two barrels high. Whereas during high volume events like the carnival and beer festival it required crampons and ropes to reach the far end. Some of this was caused by foot high thralls along each side. These are great when you only sell a couple of real ales, in small containers as they are at a good height to work at, however when you have kilderkins, 22g kegs and double stacked firkins and kegs to load up on them the height is a bit tiring.
So we now have a bit more room in the cellar. This should help us be more prepared for aberrant days when everyone moves over onto one item, allowing us to have more stock means we should run out of beer less frequently.
Additionally the cellar has been very prone to flooding, this is caused not only by rain water and automatic watering coming off the street, this has been aggravated by inadequate drainage, and that years of draymen throwing barrels down in to the cellar have damaged the concrete allowing pooling and the sump pump to sometimes try to put concrete fragments into the drains.
The third problem was the slamming flap that went up to the kitchen, this has had a weight system attached to it to arrest any rapid fall, normally we’ve been safe with this, but visitors have to be chaperoned
The fourth problem was protecting the concrete and this has been sorted with a wooden frame and a brand new mat, drainage is below to prevent this pad becoming a heavy squelchy mess that cannot be moved and squirts dirty water at us.
Fifthly I have been spending all this money to cool the cellar and the floorboards of the bar this has been resolved by insulation and a washable ceiling allowing us to wash down the ceiling when an overexcited barrel of Clun Pale Ale empties a pint of beer on to the roof.
Finally the steps have always been a bit slippery so the last job will be to put anti slip matting on the steps.
Now all we’ve got to do is paint it annually and keep it tidy.
