We’ve all heard of a dirty pint, but people don’t tend to mean that literally.
Usually it means a mixture of a bunch of different drinks, mostly leading to a big pile of sick on the floor, but a report on British pubs by Cask Marque has revealed that cider is the ‘dirtiest’ drink you can order.
That’s ‘dirtiest’ according to the cleanliness of the line (or tube, if you will) by which the cider is delivered from the cask to your glass. The lines are supposed to be cleaned every week, but many pubs appear to be neglecting to do so.
According to the Cask Marque report, 44% of cider lines in British pubs are unclean, meaning that there’s an almost 50/50 chance that your pint of cider is coming through a dirty line.
Cask ale faired best in the cleanliness of lines, with only 29% of them being deemed unclean, but that’s still over a quarter of pints served that are drawn through dirty lines.
Mark Fewster, Product Manager at Vianet, a leisure and hospitality solutions provider, said in the report: “Despite beer being classed as a foodstuff, line cleaning activity in licensed venues is neither officially checked nor regulated.
“You simply wouldn’t serve someone food on a plate you hadn’t cleaned for two weeks! Unless operators have a system or solution that is proven to allow them to extend the cleaning cycle, then there’s no excuse as it should be a weekly activity.”
The full list of draught drinks by cleanliness of lines:
Cider: 44%
Stout: 36%
Premier lager: 35%
Standard lager: 33%
Ale – keg: 31%
Ale – cask: 29%
