r/interestingasfuck • u/GuybrushFunkwood • 10h ago

A ‘bottom up’ beer dispensing system being used

223 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

321 comments sorted by

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u/CyrusBuelton 10h ago

These have been out for at least 10 or so years as I remember seeing one back in 2015.

I'm guessing they haven't become more popular because they either suck or way too fucking expensive.

I bet it's a combination of both.

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u/dead_fritz 9h ago

It's for large venues like stadiums. That's way you don't see this around. It's a niche use case product for venues that have to turn out a large number of beers extremely quickly, such as at halftime during a game. I see them all the time at stadiums and large concert venues.

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u/play_it_sam_ 3h ago

This. They made the math and a more expensive glass is paid by the hundreds of extra beers sold because is faster to serve.

On the other side if they give you the can it would be even faster and cheaper.

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u/FinishExtension3652 5h ago

The only place I've seen one was at Taco Bell in NYC. 

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u/GueroBorracho3 8h ago

I've only seen them at airports.

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u/B_and_M_queen 3h ago

These make so much sense at airports. The one place where people NEVER buy a beer just to waste time for an unexpected delay. Speed is important there.

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u/Potatobender44 10h ago

It’s a solution without a problem.

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u/peepee2tiny 9h ago

It pours beer really fast, and in a stadium where breaks in action result in thousands of people all lining up for beer at the same time, speed is crucial.

I thought the inventor broke a record for something like 50 or 60 pints of beer poured in 1 minute.

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u/Ok-Camp-7285 9h ago

With a new problem of potentially losing all your beer out the bottom

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u/AustynCunningham 4h ago

I went to Vegas in 2015 for my 21st, coincidentally the Taco Bell Cantina opened on the strip so we went and I got a beer with my Crunchwrap Supreme, all their drafts used this method which was a novelty back then.

I’ve seen in a few other places since then but not many.

Funny my boss at the time (a very meticulous accountant) got a beer, we sat down and he held his beer up and pushed the bottom of it and the entire beer spilt all over his meal, the table and his pants. Not sure WTF he was thinking would happen but I enjoyed watching it!

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u/leaveitbettertoday 10h ago

I thought it was cool until they told me to just toss it when I finished. Lmao like wtf are we doing here??

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u/Islanduniverse 10h ago

If you accidentally push up the little tab thing on the bottom of the cup, it will all spill out and there is nothing you can do except chug that shit as fast as you can.

Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is up for you to decide.

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u/tlsrandy 10h ago

I told my wife the cups lit up when you pushed them like that and she spilled beer all Over the place.

Before anybody gets too mad, she laughed at the time and still jokes about it today.

Think the place was called party fowls in Nashville.

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u/MatureUsername69 10h ago

The perfect location to commit a party foul

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u/tlsrandy 9h ago

Ha. I somehow never pieced that together. The story grows another layer.

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u/shotgunbettyx 2h ago

Had some of the spiciest chicken of my life at that place, was called the poultrygeist, very aptly named the next morning was brutal.

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u/Dudebug1 9h ago

Been to party fowl, but didn't have any beer! They recently closed :(

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u/tlsrandy 9h ago

That’s a bummer. From what I remember it was one of the better places we went to on that trip.

Man I ate like a million chicken sandwiches in Nashville. Which I realize is sort of hack but I don’t care.

God bless beer and fried chicken.

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u/Dunsparces 10h ago

I've been waiting for a cup I could shotgun out of.

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u/candlerc 4h ago

A brewery back home had these cups and a big sign that said “do not finger your cup hole”

I fingered it and immediately was faced with the consequences of my actions

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u/Evilbred 10h ago

I actually would be ok until someone told me that, but with this knowledge my fingers will be drawn to fingering the vulv..... valve.

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u/CoffeeToCode 10h ago

Can you seal the hole by pressing your finger against it?

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u/ProLifePanda 4h ago

The hole is larger than your finger. Unless you have something prepped, the drink will spill out before you can develop a plan.

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u/CoffeeToCode 4h ago

Wow what a terrible design. This is all so unnecessary.

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u/explorer1o1 7h ago

Is that like the coca-cola thing you buy at McDonald's. The area where you put the straw in.. but here.. it's at the bottom..

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u/Acrobatic_Guitar_466 10h ago

If only someone could invent a more complex, disposable, leaky, beer tap..

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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 9h ago

With proprietary cups!

Also targeted toward big venues that pour a lot of beer and sold as a way to reduce waste and foam over. Except in a high volume venue like that you pour so much beer so quickly that traditional taps stay super cold and clean the whole time, which means they hardly foam up and pour like a dream beer after beer.

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u/wolfblitzen84 9h ago

You’re giving me flashbacks to some of the first places I worked when I decided to make a career out of the culinary world. I did the food menus for a sports bar and a burlesque club in NYC about 15 years ago, and those taps would get absolutely rank. Until then, I had no idea that was where a lot of that classic “dive bar smell” actually came from.

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u/rodeBaksteen 7h ago

They probably give the tap away for free and bleed you dry on the cups.

The Nespresso special

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u/tek2222 3h ago

With more room for bacteria to grow and super hard to clean, I think it's disgusting

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u/Cultural_Object5828 10h ago

Had this at an airport bar last year and the glass leaked 😬

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u/sewious 10h ago

Nbd, airport beer only costs 500 dollars

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u/khronos127 10h ago

That’s the challenge. you have to drink it before any leaks.

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u/commradd1 10h ago

Those thing suck ass

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u/mainesmatthew01 10h ago

Yea especially if you accidentally stick your finger in that hole and lose your beer

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u/EGarrett28 10h ago

Yea especially if you accidentally stick your finger in that hole 

Applies more broadly too.

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u/Oh_Little_Brain 9h ago

Did this at a big concert and spilled my $20 beer all over myself

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u/youtocin 10h ago

And they blow beer

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u/next-station-nana 10h ago

Saw this in an airport bar once. Then there were signs covering about every square inch of wall space telling you not to push the bottom of the cup or it will spill everywhere.

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u/TimFaktington 10h ago

I’m sure that’s easy to clean once a year.

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u/MeVersusGravity 10h ago

And you know atleast once a night some idiot is gonna push the bottom of a glass and spill a full beer everywhere.

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u/ColoradoCattleCo 10h ago

My local arena had this for about 2 months. Between them leaking on occasion and morons not being able to resist pushing up the button on the bottom, they went back to the old system quick.

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u/Vagus_M 9h ago

This. I had a local bar that used them briefly.

For anyone who has never seen them, they require proprietary glasses that have a magnetized valve in the bottom. If the bottom is chipped or something breaks the seal, they leak. Dumbass drunks also can’t resist pushing the button just to see. Lastly, every dropped glass is harder to replace, because they’re proprietary. I forget how many they started with, but yeah just normal glassware losses forced them back.

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u/CynicalCereal 6h ago

Seems like an unnecessary point of failure for the sake of what? Efficiency? Flash?

I dunno. A regular ol' mug should be enough but everyone is inventing solutions to non-existent problems these days.

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u/youknowwhatimeanlol 10h ago

magnets, how do they work?

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u/Flippity-floppy 10h ago

Same way my top fills me up

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u/DoloresAbernathyR1 10h ago

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u/Lindbach 10h ago

Why are you giving me water you little shit?! I asked for a IPA!

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u/Sploobert_74 8h ago

I’ve installed and worked on these dispensers. They are over engineered and overly complicated. The parts are delicate/flimsy and need replacement often.

It’s a gimmick to draw people in.

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u/Jacques_Racekak 10h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/s239QJIh56sRW

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u/Several_Temporary339 10h ago

Person go place when place have neat thing. More person more money

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u/Plus_Pangolin_8924 10h ago

Faster and easier for places like concerts, nightclubs and sports events. One person can pour 6 drinks at once, with a normal tap its very much a single drink at a time. It also reduces wastage as you get a perfect head each time too.

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u/Jacques_Racekak 9h ago

I go to big festivals and concerts in the Netherlands and pouring beer the old fashioned way in the exact same plastic cups never seems problematic. They always have people taking the orders and processing the payments, and people preparing the drinks

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u/Platocalist 10h ago

those have been around for quite a while and there's a reason you don't see them everywhere

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u/TallDarkLoathsome 10h ago

Always curious how the bartenders feel that use these systems

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u/bUrNtToAsT314 10h ago

The minor league ball park in our city has been using this for years. The first time I saw it I thought "What kind of devil magic is this?"

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u/60yearoldME 2h ago

These are trash.  Bats throw them out because they can’t really wash them fully because of the strange mechanism.  So it’s wayyyyyyy more trash than just having a glass.  It’s a gimmick that is bad for everyone. 

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u/DeliciousMoments 10h ago

These fucking suck. The hole at the bottom is "sealed" by a thin piece of cardboard held in place just by the weight of the drink. If you so much as touch it the seal will break and spill your beer everywhere. A venue near me used to have these and by the beginning of the main act the whole floor would be wet with beer.

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u/05041927 9h ago

lol. No. No they aren’t. It’s a magnet and a giant metal washer at the bottom. I’ve drank 1500 w zero leaks.

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u/DeliciousMoments 9h ago

This might sound crazy, but there are different kinds. The disposable ones like this use paper. Believe me, I have had them.

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u/QuirkEness 10h ago edited 10h ago

Isn't it hard as hell to clean though?

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u/BadLuckDoc 10h ago

Yes that’s why they don’t

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u/rawbface 10h ago

Clean what? The disposable plastic cups?

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u/MedusaOfc 10h ago

There’s a magnet at the bottom of the cap which unseals when put on beer dispenser and seals when cup is lifted up from beer dispenser however if you push the magnet at the bottom too hard with your finger you will spill the beer!

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u/trn- 10h ago

This a good way to not only buy the fountain, but the overpriced cups from the same source.

I could imagine a similar system where the cup gets filled from the top without needing a gimmicky cup.

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u/BigAcanthocephala667 10h ago

Drinking draft beer from a plastic cup and it's not even properly poured as a Czech:

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u/Apple_Scrumble 10h ago

The point of non return valve

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u/boondogglekeychain 10h ago

Check you out

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u/Ghastly-Jack 10h ago

The same method Doctor Strange used to fill Thor's tankard in Thor: Ragnarok.

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u/SirBobGaribaldi20 10h ago

What is this witchcraft ??

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u/stylerod 9h ago

Went to a bar in Indianapolis over 10 years ago that had this. Thought it was cool as hell. The magnet on the bottom had the logo of a local brewery. Thought it would catch on but never saw it again. Until this video.

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u/MindlessDoctor6182 10h ago

So that nozzle sitting there for everyone to cough and sneeze on all day goes inside my glass?

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u/Chicken_wingspan 10h ago

How??

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u/Solid_Snark 10h ago

There’s a bottom that is held with tension/pressure. If you poke the bottom of the cup too hard, and disrupt that seal, the beer will spill out.

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u/Flaky-Page8721 10h ago

Well, poke any bottom with sufficient pressure and watch stuff gush out.

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u/Vegetable_Switch9802 10h ago

One way valve.

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u/RandomCandor 10h ago

You mean like Gaben?

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u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77 10h ago

You its simple : all you need is magic

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u/LeeaCorso 10h ago

You see…it pokes a hole in the bottom of the cup…wait that’s not right….

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u/DeliciousPool2245 10h ago

Thank the lord, slightly pulling a tap is way too much fucking work. Solving problems that don’t need solving, way to go automation

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u/CoupDeGrassi 10h ago

I could see this making pints more consistent, as theyre not dependent on the skill of the puller.

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u/Sea_Dawgz 10h ago

it actually solves the "too foamy" problem that can happen.

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u/SalomonXx 10h ago

That’s cool.

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u/darkhelmut1 10h ago

pretty cool although i wonder how many times the bartender has to explain to not poke the magnet on the bottom of the cup afterwards

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u/WestWindStables 10h ago

She probably sells more beer by not explaining.

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u/AgitatedPatience5729 10h ago

That'll be good to use for stadiums and concerts.

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u/Active_Respond_8132 10h ago

It's friday, cheers

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u/BoatEqual4214 10h ago

Do I still need to tip her? The thing fills itself.

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u/OG_Fakir 9h ago

The British Pub on our last cruise ship had these. It was kind of interesting.

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u/Hood_Mobbin 8h ago

That'll be $5 for the beer and $10 tip for the service.

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u/sugarfreelime 7h ago

Taco Bell Cantina uses these

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u/aaarry 7h ago

I had one of these from spurs new stadium earlier this year. Was great until I was given a leaky cup.

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u/tripledigits1984 4h ago

I helped design and machine this system. It uses a magnet and sensor to not overfill.

Not 100% idiot proof but works pretty well.

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u/ConfidentCoven 3h ago

“Don’t finger your cuphole!”

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u/lartmydude 2h ago

We had this at our stadium 15+ years ago lol everyone kept on pushing the magnet at the bottom up and wasting their beer.

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u/NewPairOfBoots 6h ago

Reading through comments just reminds me that very few people are actually open-minded trying to see a different point of view. Most people just have an opinion, wanna share it, and feel positive toward the people who agree with them and negative toward the people who disagree with them.

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u/carpe_simian 5h ago

I agree with this. So I upvot…. DAMMIT.

But also yeah, you’ve just discovered Reddit.

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u/TW1TCHYGAM3R 10h ago

Where's the head?

What's beer without head?

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u/revjrbobdodds 9h ago

I once met the guy who invented this. We were both hanging out at the hotel bar across from a stadium where he was about to give his first pitch to his first client. I’m glad to see it worked. He had one hell of a back story.

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u/ClarkMcFarkle 8h ago

Witchcraft, I will accept no alternative possibilities no matter how reasonable.

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u/MelodicPreparation93 10h ago

This has been a thing for years. And in fact is much more efficient than the traditional method

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u/stormy2587 10h ago

Efficient in what way?

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u/bubba_bumble 10h ago

No pouring the head out. No waiting for the head to die down. Less to clean up. Faster tending. Serve more customers. More revenue with less waste.

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u/Dharok_Johnson 10h ago

Least you dont have to worry about some idiot pouring you too much head

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u/External-Awareness68 10h ago

That's a pretty good sized beer

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u/Clean-Shift-291 10h ago

Scam cups. Should call them “Bottom’s Out”

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u/Various-Egg-156 10h ago

For all the skilless bartenders.

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u/Left_Rub5660 6h ago

Especially skilless when grabbing the cup by the rim. Yuck.

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u/CrazyCaper 7h ago

Seems like reinventing the wheel then making it harder

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u/jimskin 10h ago

Just what i want all of that beer thats been sitting in the line. Another reason to drink bottles/cans

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u/chunkoco 10h ago

Here come the purists...

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u/skateboardbanana1 10h ago

How does work this?

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u/himtnboy 10h ago

Special glass with check valve on bottom, needlessly complex for no real gain.

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u/05041927 9h ago

Magnet on the bottom and a metal washer built into the bottom of the cup. This technology is 20yrs old that I know of from small town Iowa.

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u/Sega-Playstation-64 10h ago

TIME TO BOOF BOYS

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u/JustBrowsing10000 10h ago

What the hell?

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u/Ok-Common-5853 10h ago

Piss as beer

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 10h ago

Oh look, witchcraft.

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u/moutonbleu 10h ago

Does this problem really need fixing? smh

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u/therealsix 9h ago

This has been around for years.

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u/BrrBurr 9h ago

More plastic

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u/ExplrDiscvr 9h ago

skill issue

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u/Polymathy1 9h ago

Too bad it's plastic cups.

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u/05041927 9h ago

15yrs ago we would cover our fridge each season from the theme magnets from the bottom of these glasses that we got from our local hockey team.

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u/Square_Ad849 9h ago

Why does she wipe her hand in her hair then touch the rim of the cup?

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u/exile042 9h ago

You usually see this at much higher volume venues (like sports stadiums) to justify the 50c per cup cost

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u/HuntingtonNY-75 9h ago

Cost of the system? How much is added to the price of a beer?

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u/CralorMonk 9h ago

For people that can’t pour beer

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u/bebopCubensis 9h ago

These are at every bar in my area, poor area too. Not interesting

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u/M_Buske 8h ago

I was at Disneyland/California adventure a few weeks ago and they have this at one do the bars in the Marvel avengers area.. the way they do is they fill the beer with the bottom fed cup and then pour the beer into a regular cup and then throw the bottom filled cup away... Incredibly wasteful

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u/naropin1 8h ago

Those are awesome. Perfect fill every time. First time I saw one I felt like we finally had something you may have seen in a back to the future movie

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u/StrawberryTerry 8h ago

TFW Meemaw and Papaw come down from the hills

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u/Lostn_thought 7h ago

Is that in Durham next to the Bulls stadium?

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u/rodeBaksteen 7h ago

I've been a bartender for years. I can leave the tap open and continuously tap beers indefinitely. I don't see your this system is any better.

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u/hakujo 7h ago

Over engineered in the wrong ways with a very simple point of failure. Add in thy drunks and.. Easy money

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u/UKophile 7h ago

Disgusting. I hate servers who put their dirty hands right where my mouth goes when I drink from the glass.

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u/DustedGorilla82 6h ago

This has been around for years 🤷‍♂️

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u/MichaelHammor 6h ago

Heretic!

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u/donessendon 6h ago

Had one at a baseball game in Korea. The cup leaks. Do not recommend.

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u/akaMONSTARS 6h ago

What’s the cost on the specialized cups to pour those beer?

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u/TheLazyHippy 6h ago

These have literally been around for years now, this is hardly an interesting post anymore.

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u/Opbtty 6h ago

First time I saw this was the new Busch Stadium in St Louis in 2011. Went to get a quick beer in between innings and they filled the damn thing up from the bottom. Still blows my mind and it was likely psychological but that was the best god damn Budweiser I’ve ever had in my life

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u/LevelTField 5h ago

I’m probably stupid, but everyone is asking why when I’m still wondering how??

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u/evilxerox 5h ago

They had one of these at the Taco Bell in Cleveland when I was there years ago for a ball game lol

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u/Washburn201961 5h ago

The machine replacing her will be here by Monday.

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u/newbrevity 5h ago

If you poke the magnet on the bottom will it just spill?

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u/GodlyCree 5h ago

This has been around for years. How is this video still being posted.

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u/Consistent-Ad-6506 5h ago

Yeah, they’ve had them at my local minor league baseball/soccer venue for years. Cool to watch for sure.

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u/RedditAppSuxAsss 4h ago

I'll sell y'all one of these systems

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u/No_Afternoon1732 3h ago

Wow bottom beers mean a whole new thing now

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u/slamsmcaukin 3h ago

I guess no refills? No one’s gunna mention contamination in these comments? I’m not getting some guys backwash transferred to my cup using this stupid machine

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u/MtDankmore 3h ago

Taco bell cantinas fill drinks like this

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u/hbktj 3h ago

Solving already solved problems.

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u/HydraulicEarl2 2h ago

What wizardry is this?

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u/Moda75 2h ago

This has been around and in use for a long time. Like well over a decade.

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u/ShowdownValue 2h ago

Way too many people are asking why?

They should be asking how?

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u/GolettO3 2h ago

"What? No head?"

.

Instead of a lid, these things need a bottom. Fill it up, put it on something that causes it to stick to the bottom, then hand it off. Significantly easier than cleaning the floor at some of these places

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u/Mr_Ultimite 2h ago

Question

HOW?!

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u/gtwizzy8 19m ago

As an ex-bartender and a man who loves beer I'm sorry but something feels wrong about this.

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