Beer Radar for WBM
My Kingdom for a Beer (Previously published in Wine Business Magazine in 2013)
By John Krüger
If you haven’t seen the humorous ads for the new Tap King beer dispensing system, have a Google. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I see Lionel Richie drinking a large glass of beer. I’m not really sure why.
Tap King is the latest offering for us sad 30+ year old men who don’t get out much any more. We still like beer but keep getting texts asking us when we’re coming home whenever we go to the pub, so we drink at home. I actually have a number of beers on tap at home anyway, but I’m probably 1 in 3000 who can be bothered renting beer gas bottles, cleaning kegs and rinsing out drip trays. A commercial beer system isn’t cheap but the allure of draught beer at home is somewhat of a luxury for most people. For a while, everyone got excited about the little 5L metal kegs that were popular for a while. The only problem was, the tiny little tap wasn’t really up to the job. It’d squirt out a high pressure jet of beer at the start of the keg and take a month to fill a glass at the end of the keg.
Tap King is very different. It’s high tech and if I were to sum it all up in one word, I’d say “fancy”. It’s very easy to put together, and only takes a minute to tap the 3.2L keg and get some beer pouring. There’s even a dinky little drip tray with looks so small it’d be useless, but it actually pushes out of the way by the glass and is spring loaded so it pops back out just to catch the last drip from the tap.
Although some beer fans will feel a little limited by the beers available for the Tap King, which is a Lion initiative so don’t expect Feral or Coopers beers for it anytime soon, the bottle system is very good. Instead of buying light struck beers by the bottle, the thick black plastic bottle delivers very fresh beer. My test model was supplied with James Boags Premium Lager and it’s probably the freshest Boags I’ve ever had. If you’re used to pouring from a normal beer tap, the Tap King is still a bit dinky. The stream of beer is still thin and easy to create a bit too much head but it only takes a bit more attention to the pour to remedy that.
Currently Tooheys New, XXXX Gold, Tooheys Extra Dry, Hahn SuperDry, James Boags Premium Lager and James Squire’s The Chancer Golden Ale are the only beers on offer. You’d hazard a guess that if it takes off, the range would be expanded. I’d love to see the range of beers available increase, especially if hopefully nitrogen dispensing is possible. Having 3.2L of (locally made, under license) Kilkenny Irish Red Ale ready to pour at any moment would make me a very happy drinker. At the least, a stout would make a good addition to the range.
Price wise, the dispenser sells for $32.99 and the 3.2L refills cost between $33 to $48, depending on the beer. That works out to around $2 a stubby, which isn’t too bad, especially considering the freshness of the beer delivered.
One of the first questions I get from beer nerds about the unit is “Can you refill them with homebrew?” Looking at the coupler for the bottle, I’m guessing it’d be pretty bloody tricky to do so. It’s quite a convoluted piece of equipment, even though tapping it is basically popping the dispenser correctly onto the refill bottle and pulling a lever to lock it into place.
So the verdict is; I still love a stainless steel swan neck beer tap with a steady even flow of beer, but if you don’t want the hassles of lugging 18-50L kegs around the place, renting gas bottles and cleaning beer lines, the Tap King is a compact, easy, fun way to pour a few cold ones at home without any dramas. It’s not quite royalty, but even the hoi polloi deserve fresh beer.
*Tap King and a refill of Boags Premium supplied by Lion’s PR company
