Will kegs become obsolete?

While they might not have been in every region or carried by every AB house, IIRC, Anheuser Busch only discontinued their beer ball in late 2011.

 

Same here. Lots of recently opened small breweries 'round these parts are using these guys.

 

Also, don't feed them after midnight. It would be interesting to see the actual economic comparisons i.e. cost from end to end versus a traditional half barrel or slim (which a number of the smaller guys use for limited beer runs here).

 

Yeah the orb in the OP is what is in the cardboard box thing. I don't like them. We use them when we ship stuff to denmark. They are a bitch to fill (they fill upside down). I've heard they aren't good to pour from. They are just a pain IMHO. It's really cause if they don't fill right (correct weight) it's a pain to bleed off the pressure and refill. It's not quick and easy like a keg. So many other little issues I have with them.

 

In my experience, they need to be poured at a higher pressure, usually 18psi +, to avoid foaming. I believe that is the biggest mistake people make with with them. Many bars I know of do not have secondary regulators for each draught line, meaning all their beers are poured at the same pressure. Short draw systems will not tolerate super high pressures that these can require.

All that aside, I kind of hate key kegs. The cardboard is not robust and is very absorbent. The plastic breaks at the bottom and the ball falls through, so they can't be stacked.

And the coup de grace: a 30L keg ruptured/exploded in our walk-in with no provocation. Never seen a steel keg do that.

Full Sail is developing a cube shaped disposable keg. Anyone have info on those?

 

Thats the best way to put it!

yea, kegs are just too durable and practical. I'm not seeing this replacing them, but maybe it can find its nitch.

 

keykegs are nothing new for lots of imports

 

whoever came up with this idea really dropped the ball

 

I still have a tap for those bad boys.

 

They already have them in service. They're brown PET plastic, and are basically shaped like a soda bottle scaled up to hold 7.75 gallons, so they take up the same footprint as a slim 1/4bbl. They are then dropped inside a rectangular box, so I imagine they're much easier to palletize than the round stubby KeyKegs.

The best part is that it uses a standard sankey tap, so they can be sold to customers for parties without having to rent out expensive KeyKeg taps, and since they're recyclable we don't have to charge a deposit on the shell.

 

Orbbier Reserva

 

Forgot all about the 1989 Coors Party Ball. I've got bad memories with that thing. I tried to pull off the tap off from the top of the party ball. That darn thing had a sharp metail edge around it, and sliced my hand wide open. Wasn't feeling much pain that night but hurt like hell the next morning. Had to keep it bandaged up for about a week. Lots of funny underaged Coors party ball stories I could go on and on about.

 

Not that surprising it exploded considering the amount of pressure most kegs are designed to hold. I also think that they should have used a standard tap. As for the person that says they can be recycled, I'm guessing your local grocery won't accept these. Hope some safety organization and the worker that got hurt sues keykeg and they go out of business.

 

Yep, me too somewhere in my garage.

 

Hard to sue when you're specifically going against the directions on the keg.

Steel kegs don't even have a warning not to try to puncture them - if somebody hurt himself shooting one at close range, he'd have a better case. (He'd still be pulling a dumbass move.)