As often happens with project blogs – the project gets in the way of the blog and you keep telling yourself “I’ll just update it tomorrow”. Well 10 months down the line and here I am – it’s now been in and pouring since July.

And honestly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Many of my concerns about the build – getting the beer up a 3 meter rise, the type of tubing used, refrigerating the beer in transit etc. simply hasn’t been a problem.

The set up as it stands has 8 corny kegs sat in a chest freezer in my cellar. I keep my beers on at either 9, 13 or 20 psi dependant on style. The stouts on 9 psi pour a bit slow, especially when put through an Intertap stout tap, however nothing to really write home about. The high pressure lines foam a bit more at first but again, it pours fine into a schooner which suits me just fine.

The chest freezer is temperature controlled by inkbird at 6°c (43°F) and allows half a degree variance each way. The thermometer probe goes into a demijohn filled with water in the freezer. I’m sure this means anything over 5L will be slightly warmer and anything less colder – I haven’t ran into any issues with beer freezing or being too warm. The pint I just pulled is sat at 7°c so it seems to be doing it’s job.

The line itself – I went with 5/16 ID line from the Malt Miller. I found that 3/8 line poured a bit fast and 3/16 line came out at a dribble. Should I require, I can slow the pour down by adding in a few meters of 3/16 however not really found a reason to do that yet – a pint on the high pressure lines pour in about 9 seconds, after the first pour you’re able to get minimal foam. Everything from keg to tap is connected with John Guest connections.

The line is set up to allow me in the future add in glycol/cold water cooling to the lines. The lines themselves are wrapped around a loop which would allow me to pump coolant keeping the lines at the desired temperature. This may be a consideration in warmer climates, however the cellar keeps between 8°c and 16°c year round, with minimal beer in the lines I don’t think I’ll ever really need it, but nice to have the option in future.

Here comes my first mistake – I wish I hadn’t drilled through the lid. It’s a bit of a pain to have to fight against the lines to get the lid to stay open – a collar would be a much better solution. It took a few hours to get through my worktop with a battery drill so didn’t have too much energy or desire left to build a collar.

The lines are surrounded by foam pipe insulation – the cheapest you can find from Wickes – which is zip-tied to keep the lines tight. You could of course go more all-out on the insulation if you lived in warmer/colder(?!) climates however I don’t think it needs much more.

The tower itself was the biggest expense – there doesn’t seem to be much available at a reasonable price in the UK so had to look overseas to Kegworks. Their 8 tap faucet fit the bill and was a reasonable size – many beer towers are designed for the commercial market and space the taps out accordingly. I really wanted something more compact. I cannot recommend the tower more, great build quality and Kegworks were there to answer the million questions I fired their way.

Given I had used Intertaps on my previous keggerator and liked the build quality I decided to keep the faucets the same and ordered the remaining 6 required to complete the build. The ability to unscrew the faucet spout and change to stout-spout or growler filler is a really great feature. I’ve tried Perlicks and non-brand handles and have come to the conclusion that Intertap really are the tits.

All-in I think the whole project cost me the guts of £2,000 which given the final product I don’t think is an awful lot. I could have cut corners with the taps and removing the cost of the John Guest fittings but when you can brew a keg of beer for the same price as a few pints down the local I’m sure I’ll break even soon; or at least I can keep kidding myself.

I should mention, Rob @ Malt Miller was a great help throughout the project as well – it’s great to have someone so willing to lend their expertise and ask nothing of it. Same goes for my good friend Logan, who was an enormous help trying to break through the worktop and build the shelf – and drink the beer.