Foamy February isn’t actually a thing (at least not yet!), but intentionally foamy beer pours have become a specialty at a dozen or more craft breweries in British Columbia — and there’s even a new festival celebrating them that’s happening right now.
Read on to learn more about side pours and slow pours before you seek them out to taste for yourself.
FŌM, the World Acknowledged® Lager Tour, kicked off February with foamy lager tap takeovers at The Magnet in Vancouver and The Drake Eatery in Victoria. The Barley Merchant in Langley also joined the foamy festivities as of February 10. As the month progresses, tap lists will shift from golden lagers to darker, maltier styles. The participating venues will also feature gravity pours (similar to cask ales poured from a bartop but from a keg instead) and even a Beer Poking Day — which involves inserting a red-hot poker into a glass of beer to caramelize the sugars, adding smoky, roasted or toasted marshmallow notes to the beer. Yes please, you can poke my beer any time!
What’s All the Fuss About Foam?!
OK, maybe you have already encountered one of these specialty pours “in the wild.” You can be forgiven if you considered complaining to the server about a short pour when your pint of Czech-style lager arrived with three fingers of foam on top — hopefully, you restrained yourself and took a sip because then you probably lost any desire to complain considering how delicious it was.
Much of the foamy fanaticism is focused on a special so-called side-pour (or side-pull) tap, manufactured in Plzen, Czechia, that is the cause of all this free-flowing froth.
As American beer writer, Ruvani da Silva, writes in her 2023 article, Less Beer, More Foam,
“No longer seen as a fault in service, foam is being reconsidered stateside as a sought-after indicator of sophisticated serving and an integral part of the beer-drinking experience—all thanks to a single, purpose-built tap. The Lukr has landed.”
Lukr is the Czech company that manufactures the taps that have been showing up in breweries all over North America over the past few years. According to da Silva, sales of these taps have topped 5,000 in the U.S. and we can assume that several hundred have been shipped to Canadian breweries, too.
Lukr was founded in Plzeň in 1991, just a couple of years after the Velvet Revolution, which is the name given to the peaceful movement that marked the end of the Communist era in Czechoslovakia in November 1989. The Czech brewing industry and associated technology had not changed much over the previous 50 years of Communist rule so Lukr saw an opportunity to adapt and update traditional Czech beer taps for the modern market.
Compared to a typical beer tap with a plunger valve that is either open or closed, Lukr side-pour taps employ a ball valve, compensator and strainer. The system gives the tapster much more control over the mix of beer and “wet foam” going into the glass.
This “wet foam” is what it’s all about, according to Brent Mills, the brewmaster at Four Winds Brewing who was an early adopter of Lukr taps. Mills first encountered a side-pour in Plzeň while he was on a beer-and-cycling trip in 2016. Later, he installed one at Four Winds in 2020 where they used it off and on during the pandemic.
As Four Winds built its second location, the Four Winds Beach House & Brewery that opened in Tsawwassen last summer, Mills designed the brewhouse there for Czech decoction-style brews and ordered a custom tap tower from Lukr for the bar. On a subsequent trip to Czechia as part of a trade mission for brewers put on by the Czech government, the delegation visited the Lukr factory in Plzeň. After getting a one-on-one pouring tutorial, Mills said he spotted his own custom tap tower under construction in the brass tower manufacturing area. (He actually got in trouble for picking it up because it wasn’t sealed and polished yet. They were worried he would leave fingerprints on it, but he said if that happened, they would be his own fingerprints so he wouldn’t care.)
This was in April. A few months later, he was installing the beautiful burnished brass tower (without any fingerprints) at Four Winds’ new Beach House & Brewery ahead of its opening that summer. That tower has eight “nostalgie” taps, which is the most traditional one Lukr makes, and the brewery also has another set of eight “freedom” taps, which are designed for the North American market (the tap handle swings forward rather than to the side so the taps only need three inches between each other whereas the traditional side-pour taps need four or five inches of space).
Proper side pours result in gorgeous and photogenic glasses of beer topped with cream-like foam, but according to Mills, the beer doesn’t just look good, it also tastes great.
“First, the foam that sits on top is a controlled foam with really tight bubbles. It’s kind of similar to the foam of a latté. It’s really silky and soft. Once you get that foam cap there you fill the beer underneath, and with that foam on top, you’re not allowing as much C02 to dissipate. And then under that silky, smooth foam is really bright, vibrant, carbonated beer that’s protected from oxygen as well. So you can sip the foam, which is really lovely, you can go through the foam and get some really crisp beer, or you can mix the two and it’s another unique experience.”
Mills has trained his staff on proper pouring techniques and they actually pour most of their beers through Lukr taps, including IPAs, which he says are “an elevated version of a regular IPA.”
How to Order Czech-Style Pours
Hladinka (“standard”): two to three fingers of foam on top of gorgeous golden lager.
Šnyt (“cut”): two parts beer, three parts foam, and one part empty space at the top of the glass.
Mlíko (“milk”): a mug of mostly wet foam that tastes sweet and smooth. Drink it in one go!
Slow Pour or Side Pour?
Another similar but different pouring technique is known as a “slow pour.” You might already be familiar with this technique because of a certain well-known Irish stout’s marketing campaign, “Good things come to those who wait.” Like Guinness, which is poured slowly in stages using a typical beer tap but with a nitrogenated gas mix, a Lukr side-pour can also be used to pour beer in steps that result in a meringue-like foam cap that rises well above the rim of the glass.
Brent Mills says the foam generated by a slow pour is more bitter and acrid. He likens it to the foam on a cappuccino while wet foam is more like the sweet foam on a latté. To each their own. I’ve been known to cycle up to Sidney for a slow-pour Neverending Pilsner at Small Gods Brewing and then stop for a side pour of Westy Czech Pilsner at Category 12 Brewing.
(Video: courtesy of Luppolo Brewing – a time-lapse view of a slow pour).
Where Can You Try a Side Pour?
Several BC breweries (and taphouses) offer specialty pours through Lukr side-pour taps. Here is as complete a list as we could compile – we will update it as more breweries add these specialty pours to their beer lineups.
The Barley Merchant • Langley
- Check out their IG video talking about their three side pour taps, and FŌM feature brews
Brassneck Brewery • Vancouver
Category 12 Brewing • Saanichton
The Drake Eatery • Victoria
Driftwood Brewery • Victoria
Fuggles Beer • Richmond
- Pixel Pilsner is available on side pour; watch for rotating lagers throughout February
Luppolo Brewing Company • Vancouver
The Magnet • Vancouver
The Parkside Brewery • Port Moody
- Side pours are always available, usually the Dawn Pilsner
Small Gods Brewing • Sidney
- At Small Gods, they love their side pours so much they made a custom logo!
Tinhouse Brewing • Port Coquitlam
- Watch for a rotating selection of brews to be featured, like the PoCo Pivo Italian Pilsner and the Czech Your Head Tmave Pivo (Dark Lager) which will be back later this summer
