Green way to the perfect pint with system to help pubs keep their cool

A WARM beer on a hot summer afternoon was part of former Prime Minister John Major's vision of an evergreen English idyll. This evocative image wasn't to everyone's taste, however, and now one Yorkshire pub is trying to ensure its drinks stay that bit cooler while cutting costs and helping the environment.

The Scotts Arms, a 17th century pub in the village of Sicklinghall in North Yorkshire has joined forces with a former brewery executive to install an innovative energy system that prevents hot and cold air from going to waste by capturing it and re-using it.

Geo Bar performs like a traditional cellar cooler although, once it has chilled the beer the heat produced is removed to a thermal store – rather than through a noisy outside ventilation unit – so it can be used to heat the hot water and the building.

Laura Addle, the pub manager, said: "It seemed like a fantastic idea to have the wasted heat put back into the building and it is saving 28 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

"From what I hear we are one of the first pubs which have done it and other landlords have come to see how it works."

Geo Bar has taken its technology, a modified air-sourced heat pump, into 35 pubs this year and Rob Woodcock, the commercial director, hopes a further 250 inns will have signed up by the end of next year.

"Cellars are cold but everywhere else downstairs is hot because there is so much heat produced and there is nowhere for it to go."

Geo Bar, which currently turns over 600,000 a year and is based in Edinburgh, has now completed work at nine pubs in Yorkshire for the Punch Pub Company, which it said created average energy savings worth about 5,600 for each one. Now it is in discussions with several other pubs in the region.

Mr Woodcock also hopes to see the technology used at music venues and festivals.

After cooling drinks, the energy by-product could be used

to heat water for use in showers, he said.