Most bars and breweries don't know how much draft beer they're losing — and when they guess, they usually guess low. Brent Reynard, founder of the draft-tracking platform Draft Control and owner of Laguna Beer Company, learned this the hard way: after years of running a brewery without tracking pour-by-pour loss, he found he was losing about 20% of every keg before it reached a paying customer. He joined GoTab's Behind the Tab podcast to walk through exactly how he brought that number down to under 6% — and what it's actually worth in dollars.
What is draft beer loss, and how much is normal?
Draft beer loss is the share of every keg that never makes it into a sold, paid-for pour — lost to foam, spoilage, comps, or bad pour technique. According to Reynard, an operator who isn't tracking it at all is typically losing somewhere in the high teens to 20%; a bar or brewery that tracks and manages it well can get down to 5-7%; and even the best automated draft systems still lose 1-2%.
"I was at about a 20% beer loss," Reynard said of his own numbers before he started tracking closely. "If you look back at how many kegs were pouring every month and how much 20% actually is, it was scary how much beer we were losing."
The bigger problem, he says, isn't the number itself — it's that most operators don't know it. "I've talked to many bars and breweries, and when I ask them about beer loss, they don't know, they don't track it, and they'll throw out a number — oh, I think 10%. Most people think they're doing better than they actually are."
How do you calculate pour cost for a keg?
Pour cost is simply what the beer in the glass cost you, per ounce, based on what you paid for the keg. A half barrel holds roughly 1,984 usable ounces, so a $200 half barrel works out to about 10 cents an ounce — meaning a 16-ounce pint costs you roughly $1.60 in product before it's poured.
Operators coming from the kitchen side of the business often think in cost of goods sold (COGS) instead, and the same keg math translates directly: "In kitchens, I always like to stay around 22, 23% [COGS]," Reynard said. "Beer, on the other hand, maybe 10%, 14%." Either metric works — pour cost or COGS — as long as an operator is actually tracking one of them consistently.
What causes most draft beer loss?
The biggest cause of draft loss is foam, and foam is almost always a temperature or pressure problem rather than a staff problem. Reynard's fix costs about the same as a bar tab: "You can get for 10, 15 bucks on Amazon an instant-read thermometer. Pour a pint, put it in, see what your beer temperature is. It should be 39, 38, 37 degrees." A keg that hasn't had time to settle — especially one that's just come off a truck or out of a warm walk-in doorway — will foam no matter how well-trained the staff pouring it is.
Beyond temperature, pour technique and simple under-ringing (comping a beer for a friend without logging it) account for most of the rest. None of it requires new equipment to fix — it requires knowing where to look.
How can you catch keg problems before they cost you money?
The fastest way to catch a draft problem is to get an alert the moment a keg comes off tap showing an abnormal loss, rather than discovering it in a monthly report after the damage is done across dozens of kegs. Reynard set his own system to flag any keg with more than 10% loss; the outliers point straight to the fix. "We've found bad couplers that had gaskets that were bleeding in CO2 and were causing extra foam," he said. "Went through, found that problem, identified it, fixed it, and we didn't lose more beer."
This is also where a clean POS integration built for breweries matters: pulling live transaction data automatically, rather than reconciling spreadsheets by hand, is what makes same-day alerts possible instead of a surprise at month-end — the same principle behind real-time dashboard visibility for any operator managing a business from their phone.
What's the best way to measure keg profitability?
The most useful number isn't pour cost or loss percentage alone — it's profit per day, which accounts for how fast a keg actually sells through. "If it takes you six months to go through a keg, it doesn't matter what your profit is," Reynard said. "That was tying up a line for too long." A cheaper, faster-turning beer can out-earn a pricier one that just sits on tap.
That framing produced one of the more surprising numbers from Reynard's own dashboard: his lager with lime and his blonde ale both outperform his West Coast IPA on profit per day — "which is interesting, because if you asked any of my bartenders what's the most profitable beer, they'd say our West Coast IPA. But that's not the case." GoTab's guide to modern brewery tech covers the broader case for tying COGS tracking to actual sales data rather than assumptions — the same principle at work here.
Is it better to discount happy hour drinks or increase pour size?
For most bars, a bigger pour costs less than an equivalent dollar discount, while still feeling like a better deal to the guest. Reynard found his happy hour — $8 pints down to $6 — was costing him 3.1% of revenue. Instead of cutting the discount, he changed the offer: a 20-ounce pour at the 16-ounce price. "Instead of giving them two bucks back, we're giving them 40 cents worth of beer," he said.
The swap didn't stop at happy hour. About 35% of guests now choose a 20-ounce pour for $2 more, even at full price — 1,200 of them last month alone, or roughly $2,400 in incremental revenue. Between dropping the straight discount and adding the upsized pour, Reynard estimates the combination is worth close to $50,000 a year to his bottom line.
How can you build guest loyalty without discounting?
Reward regulars directly instead of discounting broadly — a mug club, a punch card, or any program that recognizes returning guests works better than a blanket price cut, because it targets the spend you actually want to protect. Reynard started a mug club about six months ago: guests get a 22-ounce mug filled at the 16-ounce pint price. "Don't discount," he said, "but give them appreciation."
Does draft beer tracking require new hardware?
No — Draft Control runs as pure software that plugs into an existing POS, with no flow meters or new equipment required, which Reynard says takes about 10 minutes to set up and roughly 20 minutes to train a staff member on. The one tradeoff he's candid about: without hardware, the system tracks a keg's total loss from tap-on to tap-off, but can't show loss hour by hour the way a flow-meter-based system can. For most operators, knowing which keg and which line has a problem is enough to fix it — you don't need to know which hour it happened.
FAQ
What percentage of a keg is normal to lose?
Operators who don't track draft loss typically lose somewhere in the high teens to 20% of every keg. Bars and breweries that track and manage it closely — checking temperature, training staff, and fixing bad couplers or lines — typically get down to 5-7%. Even the best automated pouring systems still lose 1-2%.
How do I calculate pour cost?
Divide what you paid for a keg by its usable ounces (a half barrel holds about 1,984 ounces). A $200 half barrel works out to roughly 10 cents an ounce, or about $1.60 in product cost for a 16-ounce pint.
What's the difference between pour cost and cost of goods sold (COGS) for beer?
Pour cost is a straight cost-per-ounce number. COGS compares what a keg cost against what it actually brought in in revenue. Kitchens commonly target 22-23% COGS; a well-run beer program can run closer to 10-14%.
What's the biggest cause of wasted draft beer?
Foam, almost always caused by a keg that's too warm or a draft system with pressure calibrated incorrectly — not bad luck or bad staff. A $10-15 instant-read thermometer is usually enough to diagnose it.
Is it better to discount drinks or pour bigger servings?
For many operators, yes — increasing pour size costs a fraction of an equivalent dollar discount (cents of product versus dollars of margin) while still reading as a better deal to the guest.
