Beertender- 03.01.08
Alcohol and design collaboration is not a new thing, especially not when it comes to Heineken… but this Beertender which is basically a mini at home/office/studio tap for the mini kegs in collaboration with Krups is an interesting product to essentially ‘dock’ your mini keg and have it good to go for 30 days of perfect draught beer. Details that grabbed me were also their site design and graphics for the instructions, as well as their interesting approach to entering your birthday for proof of age… see screenshots after the jump!
UPDATE - although not new to euros - “The Heineken Beertender we first wrote about almost four years ago is finally getting its US launch tomorrow, March 1. The beertender is a special for-your-home tap that takes in four-liter Heineken DraughtKegs and dispenses via the tap, for a reasonably authentic home beer experience. It’ll be exclusively available at Williams-Sonoma stores starting tomorrow for $299, and move into a wider release schedule at the start of April.” says Gizmodo
Strangely ~ i quite liked their unusual age checker/birthday entry splash page…
Great for FOAM PARTIES, otherwise don’t waste your time!
Found out there is going to be a recall on these things, so don’t buy one until Krups puts out their version 2.0!
My Uncle-in-law is the beer distributor here in the city I live in and I called and asked him why these things foam up so bad. He said he talked to the Heineken vendor and he said they gave a bunch of those BeerTender’s away to distributor’s (including my Uncle) when they first came out and every one of them ended up in the trash.
So Heineken is jumping down Krup’s throat to fix the “FOAM” problem. I guess Heineken poured millions into the technology and they are pissed because their reputation is going in the toilet over a product they thought was going to put them back on top in the US.
Prior to finding out how bad this product is, when Linens & Things went out of business last month (12-08) I picked up a couple of “BeerTender’s” on closeout for 83 bucks each. I bought a 5L Heini mini-keg for 20 bucks and was ready to try it. I followed the video directions at Krups’ website on how to use it. I rinsed a glass out with cool tap water, angled it perfectly and pulled down the tap… Nothing but Foam! This happened with every glass I poured.
I bought a Heineken Light keg and had the same problem. Plus, just like Joel Johnson mentions in his above posted review, the LED gauge on both of my BeerTender’s don’t tell you when your keg is empty like they are supposed to. It shows a green full light from the beginning of the keg until it’s empty.
Krups definitely needs to go back to the drawing board and re-tool this product. Maybe they can call the Windows Vista guys and see how they did it.
Until then I’ll just go to my buddy’s house and enjoy his EdgeStar Mini Kegerator and some Warsteiner.
Oh and P.S. everyone’s asking if you can use other 5L mini kegs in the BeerTender. The answer is NO. Only Heineken products work in this beer-tap system. Maybe they will address that in the recall too.
----- Chris Martin 26.01.09 08:46