Getting a cold beer at a sporting event

Getting a beer at major sporting venues around Australia is something most sports fans take for granted. From Sydney’s ANZ Stadium to the MCG, and Etihad Stadium in Melbourne to SunCorp Stadium in Brisbane, getting a cold beer quickly is an essential part of being at major events. But getting a constant flow of cold beer throughout the stadium takes some pretty sophisticated infrastructure.

Behind the equipment technology is Adelaide-based firm Hoshizaki Lancer, which employs some 90 people and makes its equipment at its Beverley factory. While Australian sports stadia are the biggest installation jobs Hoshizaki Lancer has undertaken, other interesting installations have included Parliament House in Canberra and the new Wembley Stadium in the UK.

Its biggest job was at the Sydney Olympic Stadium, currently known as ANZ Stadium, and home to rugby union test matches, rugby league, soccer, concerts and some cricket matches.

Keeping fans hydrated at events at Sydney are 396 beer taps. These comprise 42 multi-fill four-tap founts, each capable of filling a cup in six seconds, and 114 stations with two-tap founts. Behind the taps is an estimated nine kilometres of ‘python’, or insulated multi-line tubes, with each tube capable of taking a different variety of beer from cool rooms to taps.

Just filling the beer lines takes 49 standard 50 L kegs - and that’s before a single cup is poured. The busiest night at the stadium was opening night, when patrons consumed 1800 standard 50 L kegs - 90,000 L of beer.

Hoshizaki Lancer’s Managing Director, Joe Thorp, said that, as stadium design has progressed, so changes have to be made to the delivery systems. ANZ Stadium was designed with 10 large cool rooms to make it easy to unload trucks directly to the cool rooms. Keeping the beer cold are 10 highly efficient glycol chillers with a combined refrigeration of 287 kW.

The more recently constructed Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane has 12 smaller cool rooms, each with its own glycol system. This means less reliance on python to transport the beer and ultimately less waste. However, a proposed refurbishment of ANZ Stadium could see the number of cool rooms increased to 14 to minimise distance from keg to consumer and cut down refrigeration costs.

Thorp said another change expected to have a major impact was a new system that literally turns current beer-pouring techniques on its head. Instead of pouring beer into a cup from the top down, the new TRUfill system fills cups from the bottom up. Thorp said the system allows faster pours by dispensing the beer in through a non-return valve in the bottom of a drinking vessel, reducing pour time by about 84% with less wastage. It also means staff did not have to know how to pour a beer and could fill more than one glass at a time.

“The new system is currently available overseas and is being redesigned to meet Australian conditions,” he said. “However, it will be a major advance in beer-pouring technology and will reduce the time people have to wait in line at stadium bars. This means fewer queues and more time spent watching sport.”

Hoshizaki Lancer

www.lancerbeverage.com