Product Review: Newcastle DraughtKeg - The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems

I'm not afraid to admit that I *heart* Newcastle Brown Ale. Ever since I was a wee college student doing my summer abroad in London, I fell in love with its maltiness and earthy aroma. Stateside, it's been my go-to and favorite commercial (non-micro) brew and if I find it on tap, odds are very good that I will order it. So imagine my pleasant (ok, not pleasant, more like ecstatic) surprise when I was offered to try out their latest product, the Newcastle DraughtKeg.

Here are some specs according to the folks at Newcastle:

• Holds 10 pints of beer
• Recyclable steel packaging (yay, earth!)
  
• Patented CO2 system keeps beer fresh up to 30 days after opening

I wanted to make sure to give this cute little minikeg a proper debut, so I saved it for our snowboard waxing party at my friend Dave's apt where we inaugurated the LA snow season. When you bust out a minikeg, you are sure to get some attention, especially from the boys, and this one was no exception. People kept touching it and commenting on how cool looking it was. As Dave melted wax over our snowboards, we eagerly opened the keg which reminded a lot of people of the Heineken minikeg that's been on the market for a while. However, as we attempted to tap the keg, we had some hardware difficulties attaching the spigot to tap the keg and some of the beer was seeping out of its top as it was being released from its intended spout.

And so we resorted to tapping off what beer we could, and whatever collected at the top we poured off into another glass. Unfortunately, the simple instructions didn't provide much guidance into how to manage this type of situation. Maybe it was because we were all minikeg tapping virgins, but despite following the instructions, it took a bit of creative finagling to finally get the minikeg to pour properly.

The taste was still the Newcastle I knew and loved. We were expecting restaurant quality draft beer, but felt the flavor was more similar to the cans and bottles you buy at your local store. Nonetheless, this product definitely scores points in coolness, portability (weighs around 15lbs I think - easy enough for my skinny arms to carry) and really, can there ever be too much beer in your life??

Newcastle DraughtKeg
Available for $22.99 at BevMo, Albertsons, and select retailers

Bonus points to peeps who can guess from where I derived this blogpost title :)