Tap handles:  you see them by the bazillion now…big, gnarly, colorful, showy tap handles, artfully sculpted into skeletons, gargoyles, shapely women, even a battery-powered lighthouse—anything that establishes a visual connection to the brand that slides under it.

Do they help sell beer? Nobody knows, that’s for sure, but brewers and their marketers sure have fun doing it. So do the retailers working those handles, and the customers who are able to watch their favorite handles being pulled. Again, the question, does anybody try a beer based on what its handle looks like?

The truth, as superficial as you may find it, is “yes”.

One year, Rogue Brewing in Ashland, Oregon presented us at Father’s Office with a beautiful skeleton as the tap marker for their brand. It was with great pride we pulled a beer from that one. Did staff suggest a Dead Guy Ale so they could pull that handle? I think they did.

One thing about those who sit at the bar and not at the tables:  they tend to be more involved in beer, more interested in what might be new. Even though at Father's Office the beer selection often changed each day and was printed and handed out to careful scrutiny, a lot of places stick to a list in a more doctrinaire manner, changing rarely. A new handle could have a greater import and stand out.

Some handles are so top-heavy that when they are pulled downward they exert so much stress on the fitting below that eventually they actually break:  an embarrassing moment indeed!

Others are so fat they can't be pulled without opening the adjacent tap and sending good, expensive craft beer gushing down to the floor: another embarrassing moment.

But you still see it over and over: someone sits at your bar and begins the familiar head waggle indicating they're trying to figure out what you have on tap. It's at that point that a kind bartender jumps in with, "Let me tell you what we have on tap."