While many of us might think that half the fun of a pub is to be served beer by hot bar staff, the Chicago Bull and Bear Bar has other ideas…

Picture the scene. It’s a Friday night. The pub is packed with thirsty office workers just dying for a well-deserved end of week beer. You are gasping. Your waitress seems to have vanished. The one barman is taking an eternity to work his way down to your end of the bar. And your mates are getting rowdy waiting for their beers.

What can you do?

Well, if you are in the Bull and Bear Bar in Chicago, simply go and sit back down and serve yourself. This city’s latest hotspot now features a pay-by-the-ounce beer tap system. Each table has two beer taps one with a domestic offering and the other with an international beer along with a small screen to track how much you are drinking. The tap system allows you to regulate and pour your own beer, essentially meaning that you can monitor exactly how much you drink – especially handy if you are driving.

But the other benefits are just as good (besides the novelty of being able to pull your own pint). You don’t have to queue at the bar, only pour as much as you want and avoid paying for a full pint that gets warm before you can finish it.

This isn’t a widely used system, as it isn’t legal to serve yourself in a bar. But the Bull and Bear get around this by requiring bar staff to activate the system. Each person at the table is allocated 24 ounces of beer (roughly two pints), which is inputted into the system by a member of staff. Once your allotted amount is up, the system freezes and you need to be “served more” by the bar staff who will reactivate the system – as long as you’re deemed to be sober enough…