How to Tap a Keg and Master a Perfect Pour

(rock music)

My name is Beth Wathen, and I'm the owner

of the City Beer Store, and today I'm going to show you

a brief introduction on how to tap a keg.

So this is our particular unit,

we're going to be using here.

Obviously, this isn't something that most people

have at home.

What I'm doing today is I'm tapping this IPA,

which I will be using an American Sankey

tapping device for that.

So the first thing, we've got this little knob up here.

You've got the little ball right there in the top.

That's what you want to adhere the device to.

So I'm gonna snap it in.

I'm gonna lock it up.

When you feel it catch, you're gonna pull, and release,

and lock in the lever.

So now it's tapped, ready for action.

So now I'm just gonna do a quick demonstration

on how to tap a keg at home,

which I'm sure a lot of your are familiar with,

having attended various keg parties over the years.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna pop this little guy

and lock it into place, right here at the top.

It's gonna attach itself again to the ball right there.

See, so setting it in,

see right there,

and then I'm gonna lock it into place.

So it's just like a church key.

You twist it, turn it, and then we're gonna release

the lever which is the final locking process.

So up, down, in.

And then at that point, you might wanna do a couple

of quick pumps, just to make sure that you do release

some of the air.

Alright, the first glass or two,

might be a bit foamy, so we're just gonna,

that kind of pour these two off.

You'll see that right there.

What we're tapping today is just

a traditional American style,

but if you're tapping something,

let's say, for example, a Belgium beer.

Belgium beers, a lot of times, are keg-conditioned,

and so they still have a lot of the carbonation

that exists within the keg, so when you're tapping it,

and you're not using a bar system, you're just using

a hand pump, you're gonna get a lot of foam,

a lot of resistance in the beers,

so it's something we don't typically recommend,

if you don't have a professional system set up at home.

We also change our lines every two years.

You just wanna make sure, because even if you're doing

all the proper cleaning, it's still things do,

they wear down over time.

You'll get kind of like a cardboardy, dusty flavor

in your beer.

That's how you know that the beer is either old,

or that the lines haven't been cleaned.

German beers and beers from Europe,

they have a different tapping device.

It's called a slider, so it just connects

a little bit differently than this one.

Another type of tapping you can do is nitrous,

which we don't have that type of system here,

but that's another option.

You'll see in bars where you have, example

would be Guinness.

Guinness is always poured on nitrous.

So it's just a thick creamy foam.

There's absolutely minimal, minimal carbonation there.

It's just a big nice milkshaky beer.

So when you're pouring a pint, and in this case

you're pouring this gi-normous mug here,

you wanna make sure you do a bit of tilting,

because you want to ensure that the beer

doesn't have a huge foamy head.

In this particular case, you are gonna want

to see a nice creamy top.

So you're gonna wanna leave a little bit a room

to kind of let the beer open up,

and then I'm gonna do a final pour.

Alright, and there we have it.

(pulsating music)