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Comment by everforward | Hacker News Reader

> you were expected to wash it before using by pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head; very unhygienic, I know

Those systems are occasionally used in bars in the US, though they've dropped the whole plate and it's usually just arms where the holes are.

To my understanding, at least in the US, they aren't used for deep-cleaning anything. That happens with soap and water in the back still. The upside-down-showers are used to clean out the dregs of someone's glass when they get a refill (you give them a glass, they give it a quick rinse, refill it and hand it back), and as a quick rinse for new glasses to clean up water stains/detergent residue and anything that might have fallen in since they were cleaned (hair, dust, etc).

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Yes right, the key difference that the were used to clean between uses by different customers; this is clearly insufficient; at least because a good deal of customers - drunks, children, people with mental issues would not wash at all before use, a good vector for disease spread. Late USSR I happen to remember always had problems with hepatitis spread, which is considerably less of a problem today, due to adoption of disposable food containers/utensils.

Its been a long time since I worked in a bar, but in the front-of-house we used a three-sink station where the sinks were: soap, water, sanitizing-solution. Then you sit the glasses to drip-dry.

Actually here is a link explaining it: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/620/three-compartme...

I've seen something like this in the Netherlands, although even more disgusting: They take the used glass, dunk it in a bucket that has brushes all around and in the middle and is full of soapwater, rotate the glass three times against the glass, take it out, and pour the beer in the glass.

Yes, the glass's sides are still full of the disgusting soapwater from the bucket that's now basically 95% other people's drink dregs.

People in the UK bery often do the whole "washing dishes in the bucket" thing which is ridiculous

I certainly won't be first in line for that beer, but I'd wager that from a hygiene perspective they're cleaner than the door. It takes surprisingly little to sanitize dishes; that 3 part system is basically lightly scrubbing twice, and then either using a sanitizer or 30 seconds or more in water over 171F.

From a health perspective, I'd be more worried about the leftover sanitizer in the water in the glass. Bleach is pretty common, and it's honestly a tossup whether I'd rather drink someone else's dregs or bleach. It's probably the dregs, I'll take a stomach flu over melting my stomach lining with chronic low-grade bleach exposure.

I'm fairly sure it's just dish soap in there, so it's not really a risk. Disgusting, though.

I think for beer there's a reason of bringing the glass to a colder temperature, which (from what I've heard) should reduce the amount of foam (not sure that's the exact term) in the glass.

Oh, are the lines refrigerated or otherwise thermally controlled? I always presumed it was regular tapwater; i.e. probably slightly below room temp, but not much.

Mileage obviously varies, but the "beer nerd/snob" bars I've been to simply don't re-use glasses without a full wash. They'd rather just charge a little more to hire more dishwashers and be able to absolutely guarantee that there's no leftover beer/water in your glass when they refill it, and that the glass is refrigerated if that's something they want.

I've always heard the head/foam had more to do with how you pour the beer (more impact/movement = more foam), but it makes sense that temperature affects it as well. There's some kind of official course on how to pour Guinness to get the correct head on it. I don't remember the whole thing, but it was something about holding the glass the correct distance from the tap and tilting it so that the beer "slides" down the side of the glass rather than a direct perpendicular impact with the beer already in the glass (which makes more foam).

For Weizen beer, you always give the glass a quick rinse beforehand to get rid of detergent remains, so you can actually get a foam "crown" - if there is even the tiniest amount of detergent present, the foam collapses.

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