Website Tap List: Stop Listing Kegs That Kicked

Keep the tap list on your website current by treating it as 1 more copy of the board: give it a line on the kick routine, check it before doors open, and show a hand-typed "checked" time at the top of the page. If the site often runs more than a day behind the bar, cut it to core beers. This post finds every copy, works out what a weekly update costs in wrong lines, and covers Google's menu, the kick-routine line, the morning check and the fallback page.

Why does the website fall behind when the board doesn't?

The website falls behind because nobody is standing in front of it when a keg kicks. The board gets fixed that night because a bartender, a server and a room full of guests are looking at it. The website gets fixed when someone remembers, and no shift has been told the job is theirs.

Guests also read the 2 lists at different times. The board is read at the rail by someone already inside. The website is read hours or days ahead by someone deciding whether to come in, sometimes for 1 beer by name. A wrong line on the board costs a reorder. A wrong line on the website can cost the visit, or bring in a guest who finds out at the rail.

How many lines go wrong on a website updated once a week?

In a 16 tap example with 8 kicks a week, a website updated every Monday has 7 of its 16 lines wrong by Saturday night. The inputs are made up, so swap in your own:

• 16 taps, and every kicked keg is replaced by a different beer.
• 8 kicks a week: 1 each on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and 2 each on Friday and Saturday.
• The website gets its weekly update Monday before open.
• A kick counts as wrong on the site from the day it happens.

A line-day is 1 wrong line showing for 1 day. The weekly update leaves 26 of them on the site, and by Sunday half the list is wrong. A morning check cuts the week to 8 line-days, because no kick survives past the next morning, and the most wrong lines showing at once drops from 8 to 2.

The kick-routine line further down gets most days to 0. To estimate your own weekly kicks from keg size and pours, use the keg math in how often to update your tap list.

Where does my tap list live besides the board?

Your tap list lives wherever a beer is named off the board: the On Tap page, a home page feature, pinned social posts, event pages, your Google Business Profile, and anything printed. Copy every one of them from the same master list you check the board against. Building that list off the handles is the first step in switching from a chalkboard to a digital tap list, so it isn't repeated here.

Fill in this sheet once, and redo it whenever the website or your social accounts change:

The "who can change it" column turns up the copies only 1 person can touch, often an owner or an outside web person. The "when it's checked" column turns up the copies nobody checks. A blank in either column is where your next wrong line will come from.

If you can't put a name next to a copy, cut it or make it generic. A home page block that names 1 IPA goes stale at its first kick, while "16 taps, see what's pouring" stays true all year.

What does Google show as my menu, and how do I keep it right?

Google can show a menu on your Business Profile from several sources, and each one is another copy of your tap list to put on the sheet. Google's Business Profile Help page on the menu editor says food and drink businesses can add menu items with prices, and that changes can take 24 to 48 hours to show on Google Maps and Search.

The same Google page lists the other ways a menu gets onto your profile:

• Customers can add photos of your menu. Google says to flag an obsolete or inaccurate photo for removal and upload a current one yourself. A guest's photo of last month's board counts.
• You can add a menu link that points to where your menu lives.
• Google may transcribe menu data from your business website onto your profile, so a stale On Tap page can end up there too. The page links to instructions for opting out.
• When Google finds more than 1 menu source, the Menu tab shows each one with when it was last updated, and you pick the preferred menu.

A 24 to 48 hour delay is too slow for rotating taps. At 8 kicks a week, a kick edit can still be waiting to show when the next kick comes. Keep the beers in Google's menu editor to your core beers, and set the menu link to the On Tap page you check every morning. Once a month, look through the Menu tab for customer photos of an old board.

How do I put the website on the kick routine?

Add 1 line to the kick routine right after the board step, so the website change happens as part of the kick and doesn't wait for whoever remembers. The routine for a keg that kicks mid-shift already has the board step, and the website line goes under it:

Website: take [beer] off the On Tap page now,
or write it on the off-board list for the ______ update.

Which half of that line your bar uses is a house call:

A short gap is fine as long as someone owns closing it. Put that person's name on the shift handoff card next to the board owner, so the closer knows who clears the off-board list and the opener knows what's waiting on it.

Should the website mark a kicked beer the way the board does?

No. Take a kicked beer off the website and leave the KICKED mark to the board. A note like "KICKED, try tap 5" helps a guest standing at the rail, but a guest reads the site hours or days later, and by then the note is old news about a beer they can't get.

Reading ahead sets a few more rules for the site:

• Add a new beer when it's pouring. If the site has an on deck section, the beer can sit there first, labeled as coming. Wording an on deck tap list covers those labels.
• Leave off anything with a clock on it: "last keg," "tapping at 6," "while it lasts." If nobody takes the line down on time, it becomes the next wrong line.
• Keep the tap numbers and the order the board uses, so a guest who reads the site at home finds the same list at the bar. How to write a tap list sets that order.

Here is tap 6 on the site, before and after the change from the weekly example:

Before (wrong since Tuesday):
6 | [Brewery] | West Coast IPA | 6.8% | 16 oz $8 / 10 oz $6

After:
6 | [Brewery] | Hazy IPA       | 6.5% | 16 oz $8 / 10 oz $6

Change the whole line, maker and ABV included. Fixing only the beer name leaves the old ABV sitting under a new beer.

What goes in the pre-open website check?

The pre-open website check reads every copy on your inventory sheet against today's board, before the first guest can plan a visit off a wrong one. The board's own opening check is in how often to update your tap list. This check covers only the off-board copies, and you run it off the board or the master list, never from memory:

1. Open the On Tap page the way a guest sees it: logged out, on a phone, not in the editor.
2. Read every beer name, ABV and price against today's list, and take off anything that isn't on it.
3. Check the home page and any feature block.
4. Check what's pinned on each social account.
5. Look for event pages promising a beer on a date that has passed.
6. Open the Menu tab on your Google Business Profile if it names beers.
7. If a stack of handouts names a kicked beer, pull the stack and reprint.
8. Change the "checked" line and initial the check.

Hand the check to the opener after the board check, or to whoever holds the website login. If nobody on the morning schedule can edit the site, go to the fallback below.

Should the On Tap page say when it was last checked?

Yes. A hand-typed "checked" line at the top of the On Tap page tells guests how far to trust the list. Put it above the first beer, where a guest reads it before the list, instead of down in the footer. A made-up example:

Tap list checked Saturday, 11:40 am.
Kegs kick. The board at the bar has the latest.

A few rules keep the line honest:

• Type it by hand when someone checks the list. A date the site changes on its own says nothing about whether anyone looked.
• Write "checked," not "updated." A morning check that finds nothing wrong still counts and still gets a new time.
• Add the time of day if the list can change more than once a day.

The line works on you as well. If Saturday's page still says Tuesday, the morning check got skipped, and anyone who opens the page can see that.

What if nobody can keep the website current?

If the "checked" line often runs more than a day behind the board, switch the On Tap page to core beers only. That's the answer when the website belongs to an owner who's off on weekends, when an outside web person updates it once a month, or when nobody on the schedule has the login.

A core beer passes 1 test: if it kicked tonight, the same beer would be back on that tap within a day. That usually means a backup keg in the cellar and a standing order. Rotators, guest taps, seasonals and limited kegs don't pass.

Here is a made-up fallback page for a 16 tap bar with 2 core taps:

ON TAP
Always pouring:
  [Brewery]   Helles Lager   4.9%
  [Brewery]   Pilsner        5.0%

Plus 14 rotating taps: IPAs, sours, dark beers, strong beers and cider.
The rotating list changes often. The board at the bar has today's lineup.

Page checked: ______

Leave prices off the fallback page, because prices move with keg costs. When a new keg comes in on a higher invoice, a 10 oz pour might go from $4 to $5, and a site that can't keep up with kicks won't keep up with that either. The draft beer cost per ounce sheet is where those price changes start.

The rotating line tells a guest what kinds of beer to expect without naming one that might be gone by the time they park. Keep the fallback until someone owns the kick-routine line and the morning check, then bring back the full list.

How does a digital board help with the website check?

A digital board gives the website check a clear answer key, because the board shows what kicked and keeps a record of who changed it. On a TapDisplay board, staff change the list from a phone, a tablet or a computer, and each connected screen checks for changes every 30 seconds, so the screens in the room show an edit within about 30 seconds.

For the off-board check, that means:

• A kicked beer stays on the board, struck through. The business type sets the label: KICKED on keg menus such as a brewery, bar or cidery, and SOLD OUT on other menus such as coffee or wine. Every struck-through line is 1 to take off the website.
• The activity log shows who changed what, so the opener can read last night's kicks and new kegs before opening the site.
• The staff role can edit the menu, so the bartender who marks the kick can also write it on the off-board list.

Your website is edited wherever your site is edited, so the kick-routine line and the morning check apply with a digital board just as they do with chalk.

How do I test whether the whole setup works?

Pick any beer that kicked in the last week and search for its name everywhere on your inventory sheet: the On Tap page, the home page, pinned posts, event pages, your Google menu and the stack by the door. Every place it still shows up is a row nobody is checking. To put a number on what those misses cost, log them 1 at a time with the outdated menu incident log.

The bottom line

The board stays right because people stand in front of it, and the website needs a named owner, a line on the kick routine and a morning check to do the same. In the 16 tap example, a weekly update leaves 7 of 16 lines wrong by Saturday night, and a daily check holds it to 2. Put a hand-typed checked time on the page, and if it keeps running more than a day behind, list core beers only.