Bringing draft beer home…
No matter the home bar set up – a game room corner, a man cave home pub, or a modern home lounge – you might be eying ways to serve a mighty fine pull of draft brew. Enter the kegerator. It’s the perfect way to bring draft beer into your home drinking life. And these days, there are options no matter the home bar set up you have, from mini kegerators to full bar draft beer set-ups. Here’s our votes for the best kegerator options out there, one for micro-spaces and the other for full-featured home bars.
For The Full Bar – The Free-Standing Kegerator By Smart+ Products
Stainless steel and black always looks good in the kitchen and home bar. It’s a good looking pairing, easy to clean and it goes with nearly every home bar style you can imagine. And that’s just the beginning of what this full-sized free-standing kegerator by Smart+ brings to the table. In fact, it’s so full featured that it’s actually used commercially in many bars and restaurants.It’s a very flexible system, fitting a variety of keg sizes (1/4 and 1/2 barrels and 5 gallon kegs). The castors on the base make it easy to move, and they lock when you want the kegerator to stay in place. The CO2 system fits in the interior of the kegerator, so the system can be set flush against a wall or amid other bar essentials on each side.
And an added benefit: When the refrigerating a keg isn’t needed, the system can be converted easily into a traditional beverage cooling system. You simply slide in the two wired racks that come with it.
For Tight Home Bar Spaces: The Krups Heineken BeerTender
Now this is a very cool partnership between Krups and Heineken. The Krups Heineken BeerTender is made to work exclusively with Newcastle Brown Ale and Heineken mini kegs (called DraughtKegs) which you can buy at most liquor stores and even your local Walmart. It may even be available soon for direct ordering at Amazon.com. Heineken DraughtKegs use a proprietary system which adds the proper C02 each time the tap is pulled.The Krups BeerTender refrigeration system keeps those Heineken kegs at just the right chilled temperature (37.4 degrees Fahrenheit). It’s a sleek-looking machine with a very low profile, perfect for home bars in tight spaces.
While these two options are our choices for best kegerators for the space requirements, there are many other beer refrigeration solutions out there too. There have been a lot of advances in home keg refrigeration, so you’re bound to find a solution that fits your exact needs with a little digging.