Electric Pumps

[Bucking Fastard]

Any one remember the old glass pumps , a horizontal glass cylinder filled with beer on the bar top , a chrome lever dispenced the beer , a pull to the right for a half then the other way to make it a pint , used to be common in Wem Ales pubs around here .

Those glass cylinders with a moving diaphragm measuring a half at a time were very common in the Black Country when I was a student in the mid 70's.Mainly Banks's and Hanson's pubs, but I seem to remember that some M&B beers were dispensed via a glass globe.It really was a case of taking a look before you buy.

[Farway]

Yep, I remember them, must have been fairly common every where, not sure of brewery pubs but maybe Brickwoods or Friary Meux around here?

Could even have been Worthington

[sheffield hatter]

Any one remember the old glass pumps , a horizontal glass cylinder filled with beer on the bar top , a chrome lever dispenced the beer , a pull to the right for a half then the other way to make it a pint , used to be common in Wem Ales pubs around here .

I worked in this pub in Lancaster in 1978 using these diaphragm pumps to serve Yates & Jackson bitter. The sparkler was always kept fairly loose and the glasses were well oversized - probably 24 oz. My local in those days was one of the few Y&J pubs in the city to use hand pumps, and the beer tasted very different with a tight creamy head as opposed to the very loose head from the electric pumps.

[AlanH]

Most of the Banks pubs around here were on electric pumps , none left now , went to the Whistlestop(i think) in Leeds in the early 90s and you had the choice "hand or lectric" same beer on two different pulls .

Any one remember the old glass pumps , a horizontal glass cylinder filled with beer on the bar top , a chrome lever dispenced the beer , a pull to the right for a half then the other way to make it a pint , used to be common in Wem Ales pubs around here .

The cylinder bar top was used in Manchester by Boddingtons, Greenall Whitley and sometimes Wilsons. The "globe" with a soft membrane was used by Bass. I remember them in The Bulls Head and The Navigation. Bass later moved onto electric free flow (spring return, unable to leave flowing whilst unatended) behind the plastic cube so that cask and keg was undistinguishable before tasting it! The metered push button came later (also undistinguishable between cask, keg and the old cellar tanks delivered in a petrol type tanker [the petrol would probably have tasted better!])

Too many edits because of too much beer

[oldboots]

Any one remember the old glass pumps , a horizontal glass cylinder filled with beer on the bar top , a chrome lever dispenced the beer , a pull to the right for a half then the other way to make it a pint , used to be common in Wem Ales pubs around here .

relatively rare in the part of the south where I lived in the 70s but we did have them

Yep, I remember them, must have been fairly common every where, not sure of brewery pubs but maybe Brickwoods or Friary Meux around here?

Could even have been Worthington

Brickwoods definitely used them, I remember one of the first ones I saw was in the Seagull at Boscombe serving Brickwoods Best (before Whitbread spoiled the beer in 1977)

[Thuck Phat]

This place had them in 1984 when I worked there dispensing Banks Bitter and Mild. The advantage was that deeply unskilled barstaff could present a reasonable looking pint which was useful for me. As I remember problems were rare helped immensely by oversized glasses which did have to be explained to those moaning about short measures. They also provided a fail safe way of ensuring that a pint of 'mixed', popular back then, had exactly the right measures of bitter and mild.

[Al 10000]

Any one remember the old glass pumps , a horizontal glass cylinder filled with beer on the bar top , a chrome lever dispenced the beer , a pull to the right for a half then the other way to make it a pint , used to be common in Wem Ales pubs around here .

Most Home Ales and Shipstones houses used this system which i thought was good has you always had a full pint with a good head on it as they always used over sized glasses.