One experience....
When I was younger and therefore more impressionable, I was encouraged by my then social circle to go to a nightclub called the gallery...a pit of obnoxious twats who are willing to pay £8 to get barged into, pay extortionate prices and listen to music so loud, its difficult to define the genre...anyways.
Once we had queued for the half an hour it had taken just to get to the entrance and got some watered down beverages, we all went to the 2nd floor, where there was a bit of space to hang about and watch the idiots dancing their asses off below. This was all well and good until some bald biker guy barged into me and spilled all £4.00 of my drink alover the floor....needless to say I wasnt impressed :(
A couple of hours pass and what do you know!! Mr Big Tough Biker Guy is dancing away with some lass who's obviously wearing beer googles!! Upon seeing this, the idea struck me on how to get revenge so I fought my way to the bar....got a pint of iced water...returned to my previous spot and tipped the lot over his head!!
I got thrown out for that but it was funny seeing him slipping around in the rapidly melting ice cubes :)
(i-eat-crayons Joan of Arc heard voices too you know, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 8:33, 10 replies)

The Gallery
Was this the one in Oxford about 8 years back? Was indeed an over-priced shithole.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 9:56, closed)

The one in Oxford is was longer than 8 years ago, wasn't it?
It's the Bridge now, I was too young for the Gallery, but the layout sounds the same.
(The Kwyjibo A big, dumb, balding North American ape., Thu 16 Apr 2009, 11:33, closed)

If it's the place I'm thinking of..
It's now called Park End. The layout sounds about right and it is indeed a pit of unholy shiteness.
(syz, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 11:49, closed)

Or
was it the one in York? Although my missus says it's more of a student dive?
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 10:02, closed)

I'm sure we've dealt with this before.
But clubs. don't. water. down. beer.

Neither do shit pubs, student unions, or anywhere else you care to mention. they might treat it badly, or not clean lines properly, or use out-of-date barrels, or the wrong gas, or one of umpteen other things that make it taste shite, but it's still the strength it should be.

attempting to water down beer sits somewhere between suicidally dangerous and fucking impossible and is pretty much beyond the capbilites of the best of the licensing trade, let alone the sort of coke fuelled retards that run these dives.

Why do people persist in believing this myth?
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 10:10, closed)

because sometimes it tastes like it
I put that down to the gas though.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 10:27, closed)

How can putting water in beer be dangerous, or indeed impossible?
I ask merely out of interest.
(idle insomniac enjoys listening to Sigur Rós at stupid hours, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 12:50, closed)

The frothy stuff
is made by carbon dioxide (or nitrogen) bubbles. To make these stay sequestered within the liquid the liquid is kept at a high pressure. Not sure of the value of this pressure, but you try blowing hard enough into a bottle of coke / beer that the bubbles stop. Can't be done.

To water down beer you'd have to compete against this pressure with your own water pressure, depressurise it/mix it/pressurise it or what have you. It's not just a case of running a length of hose from a tap to a hole drilled in the top of the barrel or having a Y-Splice in the delivery tube going off to the mains water supply.

The only way I can think of them doing it on the cheap would be to have the tap alternate between beer and water feeds- but that'd need a lot of work to ensure no-one noticed.

If they really wanted to do it they could, but it'd need someone willing to put a pretty huge amount of time and money into doing it for the payoff of... crap beer. You'd take a good long while to make a profit of even the most basic versions of such a kit unless you were doing a really noticeable amount of watering down.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 13:37, closed)

*points up*
a lot of what he said.

It can be done (by a suitably experienced engineer) - by modifying the gassing system to drive water into the barrel as you take beer out, or by inline dilution, but it would cost more than you'd ever save in beer.

And it's dangerous because you are fucking with a pressurised system. And with the barrel connection, you're fucking with a pressurised system containing a spike highly capable of being blown out upwards at the kind of velocites that would necessitate steam-cleaning the walls if you got any part of your body in the way.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 14:25, closed)

The Gallery in York...
Spent many a night in there during my student days - I've been back since and have to say, it was and still is, a shithole of the highest degree.


Still....had some cracking nights out there!!!
(Cow_Tipping_Samurai, Thu 16 Apr 2009, 10:13, closed)