The Buffalo News is reporting today (24th June, 2007) about a local company, Niagara Dispensing Technologies, that has developed a new tap which cuts the time it takes to pour a beer by 75%. 75-frikkin’-percent!!! As the article states:

“Pfffffht,” goes the machine, jetting beer into the cup and topping it with a quarter-inch of foam. The cup fills in about three seconds — about one-quarter the time it takes a conventional tap to do the job.

Check out their demo video here. (in Quicktime; for other formats, go here)

Wow. This beats the hell out of the last tap-modification I recall coming down the pike- did anyone catch the Arc or the Sub-Zero? Both of these pointless, but eye-catching devices involved spraying ice crystals, spinning, bottom-lit glasses, and beer served sufficiently cold so as to ensure that you don’t taste a damn thing. Which is fine, b/c when the sorts of beers they’re pouring in those things warm up to 43 degrees or so, you start to notice exactly how much rice and corn adjunct goes into them. Yeeeech.

No, the ExacTap is the sort of gimmick I can see being extraordinarily useful, though it is not the first product on the market designed to increase the pouring speed of beer. For example, The News’ article mentions TurboTap, which I recall reading about in one or another of the various beer/brewing magazines recently. Still, our local boys at NDT have the killer app here, I’m thinking. A fully computer-controlled pouring system which can accommodate multiple glass-sizes & shapes, multiple-head-sizes, and keep careful track of the amounts poured all while increasing speed and reducing waste? Damn, yo! At 2k per install, I can imagine we’re not going to seeing them everywhere right off the bat, but I wouldn’t be shocked–or upset–to see them down at HSBC and Dunn Tire Park sometime soon.

Anything which reduces the time it takes me to get a beer during a Sabres game is fine with me: now let’s just get Flying Bison in there, too! (Right now, there is one—one!—place on the 300 level to get Sam Adams Lager in bottles: NOT ACCEPTABLE!)