Horizontal glass beer pumps?

[JohnnyJones]

Anyone remember these? What are they called? Done some googling but no good.

[SPR2]

Do you mean the ones that measured a 1/2 pint?

[Noger]

I was looking for a picture of one of these about 6 months ago, to show someone.

Had a glass thingy on top that held half a pint.

I had a vague idea I saw one in a pub in Mansfield, so maybe Home or Mansfield. And maybe in Sheffield too.

[apotek]

Course us old gits remember they went across one way for a half then back for the pint.They were very popular in Greenhall and Whitley land.A pint of mild 1972 9.5 pence

[Shaolin]

I remember them from my youth in Nottingham - Home Ales?

[johnvthe2nd]

and in the North .. Tetley Bitter around Leeds

[F i F]

Wasn't it the Old Grindstone in Crookes , Sheffield that used to have pint measures on the beer engines cylinders, as well as some half pint ones? Around the 70's??

Can't remember now if the glass cylinder was a single vertical pint, or two horizontal half pints.

[PaulHogan]

They used to have them in the White House in Roundhay Leeds when I used to go for a Sunday beer with my old man. iirc the pub was a Vaux pub back then.

[LordGrover]

I have no idea what you lot are on about. Any pictures?

[Shaw Tarse]

LordGrover said:

I have no idea what you lot are on about. Any pictures?

I know what they mean , just can't find a pic at the moment!

[Zod]

I saw these once, about 23 years ago when my Dad and I stopped for lunch when he was taking me back to Cambridge after Easter. It must have been somewhere off the A1 near Peterborough. Never saw them in Yorkshire.

[motco]

An hotel in Wolverhampton (Tettenhall Wood) and also the surrounding areas used these in the late seventies. Mitchells and Butlers if I remember rightly.

[F i F]

LordGrover said:

I have no idea what you lot are on about. Any pictures?

The only way I can describe it is that there was a glass cylinder inside which was a small piston with a seal. When the barman opened the tap it let in beer in one side of the cylinder and the pressure pushed the cylinder across, pushing the beer on the other side of the cylinder out into the dispensing tube through the sparkler and into the glass. When the cylinder had made one traverse that had delivered a half pint, or in the case of the Old Grindstone in Sheffield a full pint, note next to student hall of residence.

The barman then reversed the dispensing lever and the operation was repeated but with the cylinder travelling in the other direction, and the beer that had previously pushed the cylinder across, was now dispensed into the glass.

I can't find a picture either.

[johnvthe2nd]

I can't find a picture either! is this a first? there doesn't even appear to be one for sale on ebay

[Zod]

I spent ten minutes searching and came up with nothing. I'm amazed that no beer geek has put together a wiki page on beer pumps!

[Ruttager]

Anything like this???

[Zod]

That's a normal beer engine.

[F i F]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

F i F said:

LordGrover said:

I have no idea what you lot are on about. Any pictures?

The only way I can describe it is that there was a glass cylinder inside which was a small piston with a seal. When the barman opened the tap it let in beer in one side of the cylinder and the pressure pushed the cylinder across, pushing the beer on the other side of the cylinder out into the dispensing tube through the sparkler and into the glass. When the cylinder had made one traverse that had delivered a half pint, or in the case of the Old Grindstone in Sheffield a full pint, note next to student hall of residence.

The barman then reversed the dispensing lever and the operation was repeated but with the cylinder travelling in the other direction, and the beer that had previously pushed the cylinder across, was now dispensed into the glass.

I can't find a picture either.

Nope. Still no idea.

Pictures man Pictures !

Ffs man,

Picture a glass cylindrical container, like a parallel sided drinking glass with a top as well as a bottom. Inside is a transverse metal disc, like the top of a piston but with an O ring where the piston rings would be. This disc is free to slide up and down the cylinder which is full of beer.

Beer is supplied either I guess by pressure or a pump to the cylinder, and it can enter at either end of the cylinder, which end controlled by a valve operated by the barman.

He opens the tap, beer at pressure enters the left hand end of the cylinder, the presssure moves the piston towards the right hand end of the cylinder pushing the beer in front of it out the spout and sparkler into the glass. The beer that is applying pressure to the piston and moving it fills up the space behind the piston.

When the piston reaches the other end of the cylinder it stops as it touches the glass end, at which point it has pumped half a pint out. The glass cylinder is full with fresh beer.

You've ordered a pint, so the barman now moves the lever tap over in the other direction, fresh beer now enters the right hand end of the cylinder and pushes the piston back to the starting point, and at the same time the piston pushes out the half pint of beer into the glass that had caused it to move the first time.

God All fking mighty!

:clarkson:
How hard can this be?
:/Clarkson:


Agree with whoever, no pictures must be a first for the internet for something that used to be as common as this.

[F i F]

Git!!!

and you'' be providing some pictures then, one assumes you're out buying custard.

[RichB]

Simply thought they were called beer engines? They were aa midlands/north thing. London & south always had pumps with handles.