Madison Squre Garden keg room

I was reading the latest issue of ESPN the magazine, and a few pages in they show a picture of one of the keg rooms that feed the 566 taps at all the concession stands in Madison Square Garden. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen - if you think you have a pretty sweet draft set-up, check this out:

Madison Square Garden Has An Impressive Beer System | Brew Review

At first that seemed crazy to me, but then I realized it is much more efficient to have ridiculously long beer lines, but be able to store all the kegs in one spot. The servers probably never even know when a keg is switched out.

It's cool right up to the point that you remember those kegs are fully of Miller Lite, and they charge like $10 for a paper - cupful. Think what an army of real brewers could do with that set up...

Most of them are, true. But I'm happy to report that MSG has an awesome beer selection. Expensive as hell, but at least I can get a good beer while watching a Rangers game!

Wish that was true at the Joe... Even the cans of Molson ($10/ tall boy) taste like they add tap water before they hand them over.

I was more surprised to learn that they are carbonating in the keg rather than simply just pumping the beer to and fro and inline carbonating at the serving point.

Airborneguy said:

Most of them are, true. But I'm happy to report that MSG has an awesome beer selection. Expensive as hell, but at least I can get a good beer while watching a Rangers game!

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Curious about this (Islanders and not a basketball fan so I don't really get there often/ever). What beer do they serve?

GilaMinumBeer said:

I was more surprised to learn that they are carbonating in the keg rather than simply just pumping the beer to and fro and inline carbonating at the serving point.

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Where did it say this? I am sure the kegs are carbonated already when received just like at any other location. CO2 is just used to push the beer to the taps.

onthekeg said:

Where did it say this? I am sure the kegs are carbonated already when received just like at any other location. CO2 is just used to push the beer to the taps.

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Yes, but we are talking about taps that are hundreds of feet away in line length. To "push" beer through that much line would take an IMMENSE amount of gas pressure to combat line resistance and keep the system in balance.

A LOT of long draw systems, especially THIS long, rely on inline pumps to keep line pressure up and only use enough CO2 to feed the pumps. Then they boost the CO2 volumes at the dispensery through inline methods.

A paper article I was shown, Sports Illustrated IIRC, indicated that they relied solely on gas pressure for service and carbonation maintenance.

Wow 550'. Think about all that beer thats wasted when cleaning the lines out. Not sure what dia of serving line but thats got to be several gallons.

Stevo2569 said:

Wow 550'. Think about all that beer thats wasted when cleaning the lines out. Not sure what dia of serving line but thats got to be several gallons.

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Those were my thoughts too. They have to have some sort closed pressure recovery system.

Ceetar said:

Curious about this (Islanders and not a basketball fan so I don't really get there often/ever). What beer do they serve?

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Off hand I don't recall exact brands. I haven't been there in two years (a kid will do that to you...). I remember telling a friend once that I had Goose Island at Yankees Stadium and MSG though, so they had that. Oh, and New Castle, on tap. New Castle from a keg is a great beer.

Airborneguy said:

Off hand I don't recall exact brands. I haven't been there in two years (a kid will do that to you...). I remember telling a friend once that I had Goose Island at Yankees Stadium and MSG though, so they had that. Oh, and New Castle, on tap. New Castle from a keg is a great beer.

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my friends were just there for NYE and were saddened to see that there were much fewer options for beer than in years past

Brooklyn Lager and Yeungling were apparently the other options aside from standard BMC offerings

That sucks if they went backwards like that.

I have been impressed by the selection at Yankees Stadium, but must say (this is hard to do), that CitiField has one of the best beer selections I have ever seen at a stadium. Nothing can beer Coors Field though, they have a damn brewpub built right in (even if it is owned by Coors).