Half-barrel vs sixth-barrel for home use: the honest comparison
Half-barrel holds 124 pints; sixth-barrel holds 41. Picking the right one depends on consumption, hosting cadence, and freshness. Real numbers.
Plain notes on home draught beer.
Editorial on running a kegerator at home. Maintenance, troubleshooting, buying guides, and the small CO2 mistakes that ruin a Saturday. Written for owners by someone who talks to them every week.
Where to start
"I'm setting up a kegerator."
First-time setup walkthrough, balancing pressure, line length, getting your first pour right. Plus the buying-guide hub if you haven't bought yet.
Open the setup hub →"I'm hosting a party."
Cost-per-pour math, party planning, chip-in fairness, tracking who drank what. The funnel-fit hub for hosts.
Open the hosting hub →"My beer's gone wrong."
Foamy pours, flat beer, off-flavours. Diagnostic flow for the most common kegerator complaints, with the fix in under 10 minutes.
Open the foamy-beer hub →- Editor
- Daniel Stevens
- Notes published
- 8
- Topics covered
- 11
- Founded
- May 2026
Built on conversations with home draught beer enthusiasts. Independent editorial. Disclosure.
Hosting a kegerator party for 15 mates: cost-per-pint math + chip-in script
How much beer 15 people drink, what each pint actually cost you, and the chip-in script that nobody resents. With real numbers from a 4-year kegerator owner.
Topics we cover
- Beer Line Cleaning Frequency, technique, products, and troubleshooting for keeping your beer lines clean.
- Foamy Beer Fixes Diagnosing and fixing foamy pours from your home kegerator.
- Flat Beer Fixes CO2, leaks, temperature, and the things that flatten your beer.
- CO2 Systems Tank sizes, pressures, refilling, and gas troubleshooting.
- Buying Guides Honest, US-market kegerator buying guides by budget tier and use case.
- Sankey Couplers D, S, A, G, U, M couplers and which beers use which.
- Setup First-time kegerator setup, balancing pressure, line length, and getting your first pour right.
- Keg Sourcing & Storage Where to buy, how to store, freshness, and the keg-size question.
- Maintenance Beyond beer lines: faucets, drip trays, refrigeration troubleshooting.
- Parts & Upgrades Faucets, regulators, lines, and the upgrades worth paying for.
- Hosting with a Kegerator Cost-per-pour math, party planning, chipping in fairly, and tracking who drank what at home bar nights.
Recent notes
The 2026 Home Bar Cost Report: What kegerator owners actually spend
12 months of customer conversations plus 2025 industry data. Real numbers on annual home kegerator spend, host-subsidy gaps, break-even math, and regional cost variation.
5 lb vs 10 lb vs 20 lb CO2 tank for a home kegerator: which size to actually buy
5lb for occasional pours, 10lb is the default for most home owners, 20lb only if you're running multiple kegerators. The cost math, refill economics, and decision flow.
DrinkCountr vs Splitwise for home bar parties: an honest comparison
Splitwise wins for general expense splitting. DrinkCountr wins for home bar drink tracking. The differences that matter, by someone who actually built one of them.
How often should you clean kegerator beer lines (and what happens if you don't)
Every 2 weeks for daily pours, 3-4 weeks for weekend pours, plus a quarterly acid pass. Full frequency table, the cleaning method that works, and what skipping it costs.
Kegerator beer foamy after a CO2 swap? The 5 causes, in order of likelihood
Foam after swapping CO2 tanks is almost never the new tank's pressure. It's usually one of four other things that happened during the swap. Here's the diagnostic order.
Why is my kegerator beer flat? The 5 causes and the timeline that diagnoses them
Flat beer isn't 'no CO2 in the line', it's not enough CO2 dissolved in the beer. Different problem, different fix. The 5 causes and how the timeline tells you which one.