How to count draft beer inventory

Last updated: 26 June 2026

Most pubs that count draught beer stock once a month are already down £250–400 before they realise it. The silence between counts is where your margin dies — bad line cleaning waste, temperature drift in the cellar, over-pouring by staff, and genuine human error in measuring partial kegs. A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year, and draught beer is where most of it hides. The problem isn’t that you’re dishonest or incompetent; it’s that you’re relying on guesswork instead of a repeatable process. This article gives you the exact routine I’ve used for 15 years to count draught beer inventory accurately and catch shrinkage the same week it happens.

Why Weekly Counts Matter More Than Monthly

A monthly stock count is too late. By the time you notice a 2% variance at the end of month four, you’ve lost £600–1,000 already and the damage is done. You don’t even know which week it happened in, so you can’t fix the problem — you just accept it as wastage and move on.

The number that actually matters is wet GP by line, not a single headline stock figure. If your cellar temperature drops to 11°C on Tuesday and nobody notices until the Wednesday count, you’ve lost two nights of pours to foam and flat beer. If a staff member is consistently over-pouring because they’ve never been shown the correct measure, a month goes by and you’ve lost a keg’s worth without seeing it. A weekly count lets you spot that Tuesday temperature slip on Wednesday morning and fix it before it costs you another £80.

I was running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and still losing track of partial kegs and spirit measures. I built a simple count routine around a dipstick and a set of scales, and the weekly variance went from guesswork to a number I could trust within a fortnight. Once you have a repeatable process, your variance should sit between minus 2% and plus 1% every single week. If it’s swinging wildly, something is broken — and you’ll find it fast because the window is only seven days wide.

The Basic Counting Routine

Step 1: Count Casks in the Cellar

Use a brass or stainless steel dip stick — they cost £8–12 and are more accurate than trying to guess by weight or by eye. Every cask in the cellar gets a dip, whether it’s full, half-empty, or three-quarters gone. Record the dip depth in millimetres or centimetres depending on your stick — the important thing is consistency. If you’re using the same stick every week and measuring the same way, your week-to-week variance becomes meaningful.

Dip from the same angle every time. Most casks have a slight tilt, so if you dip from the front one week and the back the next, your numbers won’t match reality. Pick the top of the cask and dip vertically from the middle. Write down the depth next to the cask number or line name. This takes about 10 seconds per cask.

Step 2: Weigh Open Partials

Any keg that’s been tapped — whether it’s a pin, a firkin, or a half-barrel — needs to be weighed if it’s not finishing this week. Digital scales cost £40–80 and are worth every penny. An empty firkin weighs about 22kg; a full one weighs about 50kg. If you’ve got a half-full firkin, it should weigh roughly 36kg. Weigh it, record the weight, and then calculate backwards to litres remaining using a simple conversion table (your brewery will give you this, or StockTap pub stock app can calculate it for you).

Don’t rely on the breather valve to tell you how much is left. Gravity and temperature affect the feel of the valve, and you’ll be wrong. Weigh it.

Step 3: Check Line Cleaning Logs

Line cleaning waste is real wastage, not theft, but it’s still loss. If your team cleaned lines on Tuesday and Wednesday and those logs show 2–3 litres per line, that comes out of your stock count. Record it separately. Draught hides it in poor cellar temperature and bad line cleaning waste — if your logs show you cleaned four lines and dumped 8 litres, that’s 8 litres you don’t account for as shrinkage.

Step 4: Record Everything in Real Time

Don’t count everything mentally and write it down at the end. You’ll forget the depth of the third cask or transpose a number. Use a pen and paper, a tablet, or SmartPubTools — whichever you’ll actually use. If you’re using paper, photograph it the same day and file it. If you’re using a digital form, fill it in as you go.

Equipment You Actually Need

You don’t need much. Here’s the exact list:

• Dip stick (brass or stainless steel, £8–12) — one per cellar is fine
• Digital scales (up to 100kg capacity, £40–80) — place on a level surface
• Thermometer (£5–10) — cellar should be 10–13°C; if it’s warmer, you lose beer to foam
• Notebook or tablet — whatever you’ll actually carry to the cellar
• Calculator or mobile phone — to convert dip measurements to litres

That’s it. You don’t need a spreadsheet consultant or bespoke cellar management software to start. You need accuracy and discipline. Most pubs that move from a messy spreadsheet to a disciplined count claw back 1–2 GP points within a couple of months — not because they’ve plugged a leak, but because they’ve stopped accepting invisible loss.

Reconciling to Your Till Data

Reconcile your physical count against till data on the same day you count. This is non-negotiable. Your EPOS till should tell you exactly how many pints of each line you sold that week. If your draught beer sales log says you sold 180 pints of bitter, and your stock count shows you started the week with 200 pints and ended with 15, then you’ve accounted for 185 pints. The 5-pint difference is your variance — that’s your waste, evaporation, and measurement error combined.

Here’s the formula:

Opening stock (litres) + Deliveries (litres) − Closing stock (litres) − Line cleaning waste (litres) = Expected consumption

Till data tells you actual consumption. The gap between expected and actual is your variance.

If your variance is running minus 3% every week, something is wrong. It could be:

• Over-pouring by staff (a free-poured 25ml is often 32–35ml)
• Cellar temperature above 13°C causing excessive foam and waste
• Line cleaning logs that aren’t recorded, or cleaning happening but not logged
• Measurement error in your dip or scale readings
• Till data that’s incomplete (missing voids, promotional pours, staff drinks)

A weekly count lets you investigate each one. A monthly count means you’ve lost 12% of the month already and you’re just accepting it.

Common Mistakes That Hide Stock Loss

Mistake 1: Not Recording Cellar Temperature

If your cellar is at 14°C, you’re losing 2–3% of every cask to excessive foam and flat beer pouring off the line. This isn’t theft; it’s physics. But if you’re not recording temperature alongside your count, you won’t know why your variance is consistently high. Measure it the same time every week. If it drifts above 13°C, you’ve found your loss.

Mistake 2: Guessing Partial Keg Content

Every pub manager I’ve met has guessed a partial. “That firkin’s about half-full” — and then you discover two weeks later that it was three-quarters empty all along. Weigh it. A 5kg error in a 28kg partial keg is a 18% miscalculation. Over a year, that’s hundreds of pounds.

Mistake 3: Counting Only Full Kegs

This is the big one. If you count only full kegs and ignore partials, you’ve already lost track of the part-empty keg that’s been in the cellar for eight days. Count everything that’s in there, full or not.

Mistake 4: Ignoring the Till Reconciliation

You count six kegs at opening, take delivery of two, count four at closing — so you’ve sold four kegs’ worth, right? Not if your till says you sold five kegs’ worth. The 5-keg variance is real. It’s either measurement error (you miscounted) or loss (theft, waste, leakage). But you won’t know which unless you reconcile same-day.

Making the Count Routine Stick

Pick the same day and time every week. Wednesday morning at 10am works for most pubs because Tuesday night is usually quiet, so your stock position is stable. Set a phone reminder. Block 30 minutes in your diary. If you’re delegating to a manager or head cellarman, make sure they understand why you’re doing this — it’s not about catching them out, it’s about spotting problems early.

After the first four weeks, you’ll have a baseline. Once you understand your normal variance range (usually minus 2% to plus 1%), any week that falls outside that range is a problem to investigate. That’s where the value lives — not in the headline number, but in the deviation.

If you’re serious about this, record your count data somewhere you can review it easily. A simple spreadsheet works, but if you want a system that’s built for this, there are tools made specifically for pub stock management. The key is that whatever system you use, you use it consistently and you review it every single week.