Pub Cellar Checks: What You Actually Need to Do

Last updated: 2 May 2026

Most pub landlords check their cellar once a week and hope it stays that way until the next stocktake. That’s the approach that costs you hundreds in waste, spoilage, and unidentified loss. Your cellar isn’t just storage—it’s a financial control point. When I took over Teal Farm Pub three years ago, cellar checks were sporadic and inaccurate. Within six months of implementing proper daily and weekly checks, I identified over £1,200 in annual losses from temperature drift, line contamination, and stock shrinkage alone. This guide shows you exactly what to check, when to check it, and why it matters to your bottom line.

Daily Cellar Checks You Cannot Skip

The most effective way to prevent cellar losses is to check temperature, gas, and visible stock condition every single day before service. This doesn’t mean a full audit—it means 15 minutes with a clipboard and a thermometer. I do mine first thing, before the cellar gets busy with deliveries or staff changes.

Here’s what gets checked every day at Teal Farm:

• Temperature reading: Write down the cellar temperature. It should sit between 12–15°C for ales and stouts, 2–6°C for lagers. One degree above that and you’re on borrowed time.
• CO₂ and nitrogen pressure: Check your gas gauges. A slow leak often goes unnoticed for a week until your Guinness pours flat. Don’t guess—read the gauge.
• Visual stock check: Walk past your kegs and casks. Look for leaks, corrosion, or kegs sitting at odd angles. A keg on its side is a keg losing money.
• Spillage or moisture: Water pooling or sticky patches on the floor mean a line is weeping, a valve is loose, or you’ve got a tap leak. Deal with it immediately.
• Staff handover: If a staff member worked the cellar the previous day, ask if they noticed anything unusual—a hissing sound, a smell, equipment behaving differently.

I know this sounds mechanical, but it’s the difference between knowing something’s broken at 4 p.m. on a Friday and discovering it at 7 p.m. during quiz night when your cask ale won’t pour.

Weekly Deep Cellar Inspections

Once a week—I do it on Monday mornings—take two hours and do a proper inspection. This is where you catch problems before they become expensive.

What Gets Inspected

• Gas and pressure regulator integrity: Check for frost around regulators (sign of a leak), listen for hissing, and verify that pressure hasn’t drifted. A faulty regulator can cost £40 to replace or £400 in wasted beer.
• Beer line condition: Walk the entire length of every line. Look for cracks, kinks, or discolouration. If a line looks discoloured or smells off, it needs cleaning urgently. Beer line cleaning frequency depends on your style of beer, but visual inspection never lies.
• Tap connections and washers: Loose connections account for 60% of slow leaks in cellars. Tighten everything. Replace washers that look worn or crusty.
• Keg and cask condition: Check date stamps. Any keg older than six weeks should be flagged for the supplier. Look inside empty casks for mould or residue—a poorly cleaned cask is a customer complaint waiting to happen.
• Drip trays and waste lines: Empty them, clean them, check for blockages. A blocked waste line backs up into the cellar and ruins everything nearby.

The most effective way to identify equipment failure is to write down your observations weekly and compare month-on-month. Temperature drifting by one degree week-on-week means your cooler is failing. Gas pressure dropping slowly means a leak. Patterns reveal problems before they crash the system.

Temperature and Gas Management

Temperature is where I lost the most money before I got serious about cellar management. When I first took over Teal Farm, the cellar cooler was cycling between 10°C and 18°C. That range destroys beer. Head condition degrades, taste flattens, and waste spirals.

Here’s what stable temperature management looks like:

Setting the Right Temperature

• Real ales and cask ales: 12–14°C. If you’re serving cask ales regularly (quiz nights, real ale nights), this is non-negotiable.
• Lagers, pilsners, and light beers: 4–6°C. Anything warmer than 8°C and they’re not properly crisp.
• Bottled beer and ciders: 6–10°C depending on style. Check with your supplier, but most bottled cider wants to sit around 6–8°C.

Get a proper digital thermometer (not the one on your cooler—they’re often 3–5°C off). Place it in the warmest part of your cellar and check it daily. I use a basic wireless thermometer that logs temperature every 15 minutes and sends alerts to my phone if it goes above 16°C. That £30 device has paid for itself a hundred times over in prevented spoilage.

Gas pressure management is equally critical because CO₂ and nitrogen directly affect pour quality and head retention. Most pubs run two separate gas cylinders: one CO₂ for ales and stouts, one nitrogen for Guinness and nitro beers. Check both gauges weekly. If pressure is dropping faster than it should, you have a leak. Don’t wait for next week—find it and fix it.

A common mistake: relying on one cylinder for both gases. It tempts staff to grab the wrong one, and you end up with nitrogen in your real ale (flat, no head) or CO₂ in your Guinness (acidic, weird texture). Keep them clearly labelled and on opposite sides of the cellar.

Stock Control and Shrinkage Prevention

Shrinkage is the difference between what you think you have and what actually exists. It comes from spillage, waste, theft, incompletely full kegs, and faulty measures. At Teal Farm, I reduced shrinkage from 4% to under 1.5% by implementing three changes: daily stock checks, keg rotation audits, and line cleaning logs.

Preventing Stock Loss

First-in, first-out rotation matters more than most landlords realise. A cask sitting at the back of your cellar for three weeks isn’t going anywhere. Mark every keg and cask with the delivery date. Newer stock goes to the back. This is especially important for cask ales, which have a shelf life of 7–10 days once vented.

Track your opening stock levels daily. Know what’s sitting in your cellar in pounds, not just volume. When you can see that you’ve got £3,200 worth of stock on hand, waste suddenly feels less abstract. Use your pub stock take template weekly—not just monthly. Weekly stocktakes take 90 minutes and reveal loss patterns that monthly stocktakes miss completely.

Spillage tracking is underrated. Every time a keg or cask vents, dies, or gets accidentally knocked over, log it. After a month, you’ll see if spillage is random or concentrated on particular days or shifts. That data tells you whether you’ve got a staff training problem or a cellar maintenance problem.

Your pub profit margin calculator should account for cellar shrinkage as a line item. If you’re assuming 2% shrinkage and you’re actually running 4%, your entire financial projection is wrong. Shrinkage is not cost of sales—it’s loss. Measure it, track it, and eliminate it.

Recording Cellar Data So It Actually Matters

Here’s what separates pubs that lose money to cellar problems from pubs that don’t: documentation. A handwritten temperature log in a notebook is useless. You need data you can actually refer to and analyse.

At minimum, record:

• Daily temperature (single entry, takes 10 seconds)
• Weekly equipment checks (tick-box, takes 5 minutes)
• Monthly keg rotation audit (which kegs have been sitting longest)
• Any damage, leaks, or spoilage (date, item, reason, estimated loss)

I used a spreadsheet for the first year. It worked, but adding cellar tracking to the Pub Command Centre was transformative. The system automatically logs temperature data, tracks when lines were last cleaned (critical for EHO compliance), records which kegs are in stock, and flags when a cask has been venting for too long. That visibility meant my best revenue year in 2025 wasn’t luck—it was the result of eliminating cellar waste systematically.

When I passed my NSF audit in March 2026, the auditor specifically noted the cleanliness of my cellar records. Regulators want to see that temperature was monitored consistently and that any losses were logged. A pub with good cellar documentation passes audits faster and faces fewer follow-up questions.

Common Cellar Problems and How to Fix Them

Temperature Fluctuation

The most common cause of temperature swings is a failing cooler unit running continuously without proper rest cycles. If your cellar swings 5°C or more daily, your cooler is either undersized for your volume or the compressor is failing. This isn’t optional—get it serviced or replaced. Running a keg in an unstable cellar costs more in waste than the repair.

Flat or Slow-Pouring Beer

This usually points to gas pressure loss or a blocked line. Check your pressure gauge first—if it’s dropped significantly, you have a leak. If pressure is normal, the line is blocked. How often should you clean beer lines depends on the type of beer, but any line that hasn’t been professionally cleaned in three months should be cleaned immediately. Don’t let staff try to force beer through a blocked line—that’s the fastest way to damage the keg.

Keg or Cask Leaks

A slow leak from a valve might seem minor, but it’s £5–10 per day in waste. Tighten the valve first. If it still leaks, replace the washer. If it leaks after that, the keg is faulty and your supplier needs to replace it. Don’t store a leaking keg hoping it will stabilise—it won’t. Move it out immediately and log it.

Condensation and Moisture

Pooling water or sticky floors in your cellar invite mould, contaminate stock, and damage equipment. This usually happens when your cellar is too cold relative to the ambient temperature upstairs, or your ventilation is poor. Insulate pipes, improve airflow, and ensure your cellar door seals properly. Moisture in a cellar isn’t just unpleasant—it’s a health and safety issue during EHO inspections.

Taking cellar management seriously transformed how I run Teal Farm. The checks aren’t tedious when you know they’re protecting profit. Before you sign anything with a pubco, understand that cellar management is the difference between breaking even and thriving.

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