Overview

The Waterloo Hotel is a well established iconic hotel that has seen many changes over its 130 years of trading. Once reliant on public bar trade and surrounded by large manufacturing plants such as Coca-Cola and Golden Circle, the building has been recently restored and refurbished with a luxurious and eclectic interior.

The venue is one of the flagship hotels in the Coles Group, frequented by local residents who enjoy the inner city lifestyle that Fortitude Valley offers. The hotel’s aim is to provide customers with a broad range of high quality beverages and restaurant style food in pleasant, comfortable surroundings.

A challenge of the new design was to provide a large number of draught beer brands on tap, at multiple small-width stations around the hotel, whilst maintaining a unique and innovative look.

Staff safety was also an important factor, and so the configuration of beverage systems within the cool room had to be logical, ergonomic, easy to maintain and safe to work in, all while making best use of the available space

Solution

Although the venue is open plan the hotel was eager for ice formation on their beer founts to illustrate the cold temperature of their beer to customers. Lancer worked closely with the Waterloo Hotel to design the custom beer dispensing founts and manufacture them to suit the counter top. Each station allows 10 draught beer brands to be ranged across the flat counter style bar, creating ease of presentation and focus for draught beer.

The Waterloo Hotel also required a draught beer dispensing system that reduced their gas consumption. Lancer has pioneered the use of beer pumps in Australia, and the Coles group recognised the value in equipping their hotels with air driven beer pumps. These pumps allow beer to be dispensed at low CO² pressure as the brewer intended, and provide cost savings in comparison to mixed gas systems. Fob detectors were also installed to shut off beer supply after the keg has been dispensed. This stops foaming at the tap and eliminates keg changeover waste

Softdrink dispensing systems were also upgraded to our large S8B Superchiller, Wunder-Bar bargun dispensers, and bag in box racking.

A ventilated area was then created in the cool room for the soft drink S8B Superchiller and main bottled CO² supply. By housing the CO² supplies for softdrink and beer in the same space, we were able to supply and fit our fully compliant AS5034 gas system. This system not only ensures a safe working environment for staff but also reduces the risk rating for the hotel and the number of monitors required.

Also in the cool room, flexible gas drop leads allows staff the flexibility to move kegs around without kinking while still keeping the couplers off the ground.

The most important task for any venue is to maintain the line and component cleaning of the beverage system. The installation of volumetric pumps meters the line cleaning fluid and water into the system without having to handle the chemicals used in this process.

Results
The local residents in Fortitude Valley and surrounding areas have now made the Waterloo Hotel their venue of choice. They can now enjoy a wide range of high quality, cold draught beers, catch up with friends, and enjoy great meals in comfortable surroundings.

The bar staff at the Waterloo Hotel now have beer dispensing systems and equipment that are not only easy to use, but safe. They know they are protected by the fully compliant AS5034 gas system and Lancer Gas Monitor.

Customers continually comment on the icy look and feel of the custom beer founts, as well as the presentation, temperature and high quality taste of the draught beers.