Self-Serve Beer

Here’s the idea – put taps at the table and let customers pour their own. And it seems to be working, at least at STATS sports bar in Atlanta, Georgia. The taps are hooked up to a meter that monitors how many ounces – that’s how the bar charges its customers for the beer – flows. Every 180 ounces the server has to come back to the table to approve the next 180 ounces; ID checks all around, I suppose.

Jeff Libby patented the system. He was inspired by a similar set up he saw at a bar in South America. What was the first thing that he did upon returning to the States to get his plan off the ground? He contacted a lawyer. Yep, more important than coming up with the tools and materials, not to mention distributors and venues, for the self-pouring system was making sure that a way could be found for it through the tangle of laws that monitor beer and alcohol sales here in the US and in Georgia. It’s wholly understandable because I’m quite sure that any of the people he would have contacted about the idea would have asked about its legality straight away. As the AP article points out, Georgia is a state where it’s still illegal to buy a 6-pack on a Sunday.