Draught Equipment and Sustem Configurations > Temporary Draught Dispense > Picnic Pumps

Picnic pumps or party taps allow draught beer dispense for a one-day occasion or event.  These systems compromise accepted standards of draught dispense in order to offer a simple method for serving draught beer.

In the simplest systems, the beer flows to a simple plastic faucet attached to short section of vinyl hose. Gas pressure comes from compressed air introduced by way of a hand-operated pump integrated into the coupler.  The pictures show plastic- and metal-construction examples of a picnic tap.

Since these systems introduce compressed air into the keg, they are only suitable for situations where the beer will be consumed in a single day. Also, these dispensing systems typically do not produce the best serving results, since balancing the correct top pressure is very imprecise.  For best results, the keg must be kept in ice and consistently—but not excessively—pumped as the contents are dispensed.

Improved designs use single-use CO² cartridges with an integrated regulator.  These units may also include a traditional vented faucet mounted on a short length of stainless steel beer line.  This design overcomes the key shortcomings of hand-pumped picnic taps.

Picnic pumps are available in plastic (left) and metal (center) models.

The unit on the right incorporates a single-use CO₂ cartridge.

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