Supporting craft breweries

I was a major fan of Caribou (Version 1, Galway edition) when it opened in my latter years of college (and prior to my interest in craft beer). The vibe & atmosphere is one I enjoy most evenings out, and food was very good.

Impala (Cork) is also quite enjoyable for me, but they do not have food. As BeerNut says, there is little to no way to find out what is pouring there before you go. Their socials sometimes post what is going on, but there is no live listing. So, I find myself going across to the Bierhaus instead (as their taplist is live on Untappd). That said, Impala works well for evenings out with non-beer heads, as they have a comprehensive cocktail offering as well as Guinness.

It's a bit of a pain in the arrse when you already have all the other jobs involved with running a pub. Craft beer pubs already require more time for things like ordering, stock control, till programming and it can be a full time job keeping staff knowledgeable about the ever changing products.

Stuff can get out of date very fast when the boss isn't on shift or when a bunch of stuff changes mid shift.

Just go in look at the taps and embrace the mystery.

Depending on the pub doing it every day can be a bit much if it makes it obvious your tap rotation isn't that fast on some lines. I used to just post and tag a selection of what was on but not the whole bank of taps. Highlight new beers that just came on.

That's the exact same place that Taplist and the likes fall down. They are never up to date by the end of the day in a busy pub.

It's great to say "just update it" but once service starts there is way more to think of than someone upset that a beer sold out. It's a rotational tap and it rotating at an unfortunate time for you is just part of craft pubs.

You don't need to know what a restaurant is serving. You just need to know what kind of restaurant it is. Many operate with "sample menus" on the website.

You know it's a craft beer pub and if it's a good one it will have a broad selection of styles. In the example I was giving above the customer might not know every beer but knew I always had 8 taps which were always 2xPale, 2x IPA, lager, dark/stout, sour/fruit/saison and a tap.for mad stuff like imperials or barrel aged.

I hate pale and IPA and even I've never walked into a craft beer place and had to leave from lack of options.

As for calculation ya changing a beer involves washing and flushing the line, changing the badge, changing the button on the till and the menu in house so thinking about the guy on untapped who wasn't coming in but may because of an update or who was but is so mad for a certain beer nothing else will do is way down the list when you are thinking of all the people actually in the pub.

It's no harm if you get it done but it would never factor into my rating of a place. And some spots I actually look at and think maybe the manager needs to put the phone down and give the place a scrub or be paying more attention to his staff.

I'm an incredibly picky eater; I cannot guarantee that there'll be something I can eat in a restaurant without seeing the menu and I have had to bail from places cause of it.

And I'm not vegan or coeliac which would make that worse; and is somewhat applicable to beer also - although these days vegan beer isn't hard to find at all.

If I was making a special trip out somewhere I'd like to know if there was a chance it'd all be stuff I'd hate. (says me who has made hundreds of special trips to pubs with the blandest tap lineups in the world, but for other reasons)

Maybe I'm spoiled because I'm a regular in Underdog. Case in point, last night, two beers ran out when we were there, two new beers were up on taplist before we left - but then Anto is on the ball.

Fair. I think Underdog's menu screens are actually powered off taplist, so they've every reason to do it. Can't order it if I can't see it's for sale.