These pages attempt to provide a total, accurate and up-to-date (which means up to August 21st 2009!) description of the "home tap", for what is called the "authentic draught beer drinking experience" at home.
No other country in the world offers a greater variety in beer taps than the Netherlands. The USA come second. And in western Europe, especially in the UK, Germany, France and in Belgium, a smaller variety in beer taps is available. These pages discuss all of them in great depth. All info here is based on my personal investigations and experiences.
The BeerTender, the PerfectDraft and the Wunderbar, in all of their different versions, are described meticulously, as well as the other systems, like the Cheersch, the Princess, the Bavaria Biertap, the CoolKeg, the DraughtKeg, the Easy Draft and the Biermaxx plus over 20 other tap systems for small kegs. Also current prices for the kegs are kept and displayed.
Unlike the USA, where beer taps for the home were already in existence (e.g. with expensive and large appliances like the kegerator and other), Europe saw the first personal beer tap not before early 2004.
Philips and Heineken had worked on developing such a machine since 2000, but in 2002 this cooperation ceased, as Philips did not agree on the principle of "Heineken beers only". Heineken found a new partner in SEB and the first tap for 4 liter kegs was released in Switzerland in 2003. That was a success, and in March 2004 the BeerTender was released in Heineken's home market The Netherlands under the brand name Krups, as subsidiary of SEB. Here it turned out a huge success as well. In 2009 the beer tap is available under different brand names (all subsidiaries of SEB): Krups, Tefal, T-fal or SEB itself, in various countries. In the Netherlands, Heineken has released more and more of its brands on kegs: no less than 15, but alas, since 2009, four of them: Affligem abbey beer, Amstel 1870, Brand UrTyp and Murphy's Irish Red, are no longer available. In 2008 the BeerTender was introduced in the USA. This model BeerTender also accepts the carbon-pressurized 5 liter DraughtKegs, with beers of Heineken and Scottish & Newcastle.
Philips also found a new partner called Interbrew (now Anheuser-Busch InBev) and the first tap for 6 liter kegs was released in Belgium and Luxemburg in November 2004. Since October 2005 it's available in The Netherlands and Germany. Heineken tried to stop Philips through litigation (it could not act when it was only available in Belgium and Luxemburg because Heineken has no market share there apart from the bought breweries Affligem and Maes, which makes that the BeerTender was never sold there but a handful), but since January 2007 all court cases were dismissed after a secret agreement between Philips and Heineken. The machine is sold in many countries and has 18 flavors available.
Wunderbar (Chinese built, sold through various channels) has released a machine that accepts all small kegs (4, 5 and 6 liters), except the DraughtKegs. This machine (or one of its many clones) is now available in The Netherlands, Belgium, The UK, Austria, France and Turkey. The plastic adapters to connect the keg and the tap are not as robust as the original BeerTender and PerfectDraft connections and therefore the seal is also not as good; this makes that the beer turns stale much sooner than the 30 days that is claimed for the other machines. Big advantage of the Wunderbar though is that a model with real cool compressor is available for a competitive price, which allows cooling of the keg in 3 hours rather than 15 hours from room temperature.
The Dutch company Princess has released a tap for DraughtKegs only (flavors in DraughtKegs now include Heineken, Heineken light, Maes, Newcastle Brown ale, Krombacher, Krombacher weizen, Pelforth blonde). The first model was very flimsy, but a second improved model was released. The Princess can also be used as portable cooler.
Grolsch, who also sells kegs for the PerfectDraft, wanted an alternative (not a replacement) for the big and power consuming beer tap. In May 2008 they released a 2 liter bottle on which a carbon pressurized tap can be placed; the whole can be placed on a driptray. The advantage is that you can cool the bottle in a standard fridge and put the rest of the tap away. It can be set up in less than 10 seconds.
Then there are many appliances which cater for the 5 liter easy kegs (on the market since 1972). Some use just gravity, other use a pressure cylinder.
There are also taps for 10 liter kegs, like the Easy Draft from Franke Blefa, the Bavariatap and the Heineken TenCan. There is also the self-cooling CoolKeg. There are table beer taps. There are dry cool taps for larger kegs.
All these possibilities are described in detail (and in Dutch) on these pages.
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