Four-Mile Beer Pipeline Keeps German Metal Fest Beered Up

I don’t imagine the organizers of our own Pickathon will soon be following this example reported in today’s Atlas Obscura newsletter, but you have to love the way the problem was solved.

“A full, standard keg of beer weighs just over 160 pounds and is pretty unwieldy. So it’s no surprise that the folks at the Wacken Open Air music festival in Wacken, Germany, are sick of schlepping them across fields every year, and have decided to do something about it. Come August, they’ll be able to pour 105,000 gallons of beer at stands around the festival grounds thanks to four miles of underground piping.

Music fans at the heavy metal festival are a thirsty bunch. According to Deutsche Welle, the 75,000 attendees each drink, on average, more than a gallon of beer over the course of the festival’s three days. Keeping up with that demand has been a struggle in past years. The new pipeline will provide enough pressure to pour six beers in six seconds.”