St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and it’s time to thoroughly check those draft beer lines, refrigerator temps and expiration dates!

If not, you could run into a real business problem on March 17: bad beer. Draft beer issues can really ruin a customer’s night as well as your bottom line. Pitchers and pints of bad tasting, smelling, excessively foamy or totally flat beer can put a cramp on any attempts to beef up the bar tab.

Here’s an example of something I recently experienced:

I was out at a posh movie theater in town. It’s the kind of place that has a cocktail lounge for guests to hang out in before the movie starts. I love this theater and I normally have a great time there. However my last experience left a bad taste in my mouth, literally. I ordered my favorite beer and when I received it, it looked flat – no foam whatsoever. And when I lifted it to my mouth to taste it, I could smell a weird odor. I tasted it anyway and sure enough it tasted funky too. I brought the beer back and told the bartender about the problem. He poured me another and it still smelled and tasted horrible. I ended up getting a soda instead.

We both lost that night, me and the bar sales. I didn’t get the product I was hoping for and they didn’t get to sell me the more expensive beverage.

Learn how to avoid excessively foamy beer, flat beer and bad-smelling or bad-tasting beer in your own bar with this helpful article: Maintaining a Problem-Free Tap System