Finding the Right Keg and Tap for Your Kegerator

Published On: Tuesday, August 19, 2008

For the owner of the home bar draft system kegerator, the size of the kegs contained within can be an interesting challenge. For home brewers, even a small kegerator can hold two or three Cornelius kegs. Beer fans who buy their kegs of beer and don’t brew them themselves, can sometimes run into problems finding a choice of smaller kegs. When you do find the right keg for your kegerator, you will also need to have the right keg tap. One of the great advantages of the home draft system is, of course, buying in bulk. But you cannot buy variety in bulk unless you have room to store it. Beer needs to be stored in chilled conditions, so the first thing to look at is the design of your kegerator. How much does it hold?

If you are interested in having more than one kind of beer at a time, you may want to invest in a larger kegerator. Especially if you are buying large, commercially produced kegs of beer! The most efficient designs, space-wise, is the large storage freezer D.I.Y. kegerator design. This design can, depending on the model that is converted, hold up to five regulation sized kegs and all the equipment to have them flowing all at once. Needless to say, the home brewer can fit many MANY Cornelius kegs into such a large kegerator, perhaps as many as twelve Cornelius kegs.

Some people prefer quality over quantity. If you are looking for small handcrafted kegs of beer, you might want to consider Cask ales. Serving a cask ale from your home draft system kegerator requires a small amount of modification to your keg system. The main difference you will find between cask ales and regular beer is that cask ale is alive – it is un-pasteurized, carbonated under its own yeast-based process – and consequently, served with either a gravity feed or an air pump instead of a CO2 tank. Depending on your style of kegerator, you will have to decide on what method of cask ale dispensation you would like to employ. See my article "Converting Kegerators for serving Cask Ale" for more information.

If you are planning on having a variety of beers available for dispensation through your home draft system, you may have to invest in a variety of keg taps. There are different taps for different kegs, some specific for certain beers. Without the proper tap, you will be kept from your beer. US Sankey Keg Tap is the most commonly used tap in the U.S.. Of the beers that are made in the U.S.A., 95% use the US Sankey Keg Tap. German Keg Taps are another design. German keg taps will fit most keg beers made in Germany, including Spaten, but for Heineken, you will need the European Sankey Keg Tap, which will also serve Murphy's Stout and New Castle. The European Sankey Keg Tap looks very similar to the US Sankey Keg Tap, but the difference is that the stem that goes into the keg is shorter on the US Sankey Keg Tap. In addition to these keg taps, some brands of beer require taps just for that brand. Guinness falls into this category.

Finding the right keg and tap for your kegerator may take some time and experimentation, but once you have your system down, the beer will flow smoothly and evenly.

For additional information on kegerators or draft beer topics please visit our kegerator article center.