If you’re planing a big party or game day extravaganza, you might ask yourself if it’s more economical to buy a beer keg instead of a few cases. Here’s a simple rule of thumb you can use to find out.
Kegs of beer are appealing because they provide a lot of beer for less, you don’t end up with a bunch of cans and bottles lying around, and you don’t have to make room in your fridge for everybody’s six-pack. Still, you probably don’t need one at you next footy final party. As Allison Russo at The Kitchn explains, a proper, full-size beer keg comes in at about 61 litres, which is roughly equal to 160 bottles of beer. That’s about eight beers for 20 people, or 16 beers for ten. That’s a lot of beer.
Most parties won’t need that much, but if you’re hosting an all-day gathering for a large group of people it could still be worth it – especially if you get a quarter barrel keg instead, or even a 5-litre mini keg. But honestly, if you have less than 35 people coming over, you should probably just pick up a few cases. You’ll get more variety anyway.
Should You Just Get a Keg? [The Kitchn]
Photo by Jenn Durfey.
Comments
7 responses to “How Many People You Need At A Party To Make A Beer Keg Worthwhile”
I’d like to have seen some prices mentioned. It’s one thing to say “it’ll be more beer than you need”, it’s a different thing to say “it’ll cost you more”.
Depends on the brewery, if you need all the hardware as well. Some breweries do 19L kegs others do 50L.
Best to just get a friend who homebrews his own, just as good if not better and a lot cheaper as they don’t have to deal with the alcohol excise that a place which sells the beer to you has to.
RE: Yes I’m a homebrewer 😉
Maybe the author feels that wasting beer is worse than wasting money?
It wouldn’t be wasted, I could use it to water my garden if it was cheaper 😛
@tricache: Which is kinda why I was asking. I have no idea even vaguely what price range you’d be looking at for kegs (or sizes for that matter). It’d have been nice to see a bit more info.
I’d also like to know how long do you get the keg for? Is it a day rental? A week? Are you actually *buying* the keg?
@skrybe Usually rent the keg, most have pricing variation depend on what beer it is (excise for alcohol changes)
http://www.laughinglizardbrewing.com.au/party-keg-hire.html — A place local to me which I know hires them with equipment
I know you are asking for a set price but unfortunately no such thing haha
That’s cool. Thanks for the link. I had a bit of a read and it was very informative. The rental duration is cool too, effectively Friday – Tuesday. That’s awesome, you could effectively have it for several parties. Start friday, hammered through til Monday. Sober up Tuesday to drop it off 😀
Yeah I can understand that prices could vary wildly, but I kinda figure that’s the point of an article like this, they could have said “Prices start as low as… and range up to …”
Watering your garden with beer certainly sounds like wasting beer to me 🙂
One.