Unitasker Wednesday: The Krups BeerTender

Williams-Sonoma has a nice little contraption for you beer lovers out there. More specifically, you Heineken drinkers out there. If you like Heineken and you love their newish five liter draught kegs, then you might want to check out the Krups BeerTender.

If you do invest the $300 for this little kegerator, you better hope Heineken doesn’t abandon the five liter kegs. If they do, you will be left with a useless BeerTender that does nothing more than keep a six pack cold. Or what if your tastebuds change and you start craving Pabst Blue Ribbon? You may be scouring the internet for BeerTender hacks on how to make it serve other similarly sized kegs.

The product development team at Heineken better have the BeerTender owner in mind if they ever consider pulling the plug on those cute and tiny kegs. But then again, isn’t the whole idea behind those Heineken kegs the ease of use and no need for anything other than the keg to pour a beer?

**Each week, the Unitasker Wednesday column humorously pokes fun at the unnecessary, single-use items that manage to find their way into our homes.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Posted by Matt on May 21, 2008 | Comments | Tweet This

16 comments posted

  1. Posted by Will - 05/21/2008

    Does this thing work with standard home brew party kegs? If it does, then it might be a good product after all. Those 5 liter kegs take up a lot less space than tons of bottles.

  2. Posted by SuperChuck - 05/21/2008

    Wow, I had assumed it worked with any 5L “party keg”.

    A beer fridge is kind of a unitasker, but kind of necessary if you’re a beer nerd.

  3. Posted by el - 05/21/2008

    From first glance, I said, “Wow, I want this!” After seeing that it only takes Heineken, I’m going to pass. However, if I could choose the beer, I might get it. The cool factor is too high for me to care about one added piece of clutter.

  4. Posted by Andy - 05/21/2008

    This might be a “unitasker”, but it’s the coolest one by far, which excuses it in my mind.

    And I’m pretty sure you can use any 5L keg with this. Lots of stores sell them, so you should be able to get a decent selection of non-Heineken beer.

  5. Posted by Andrew - 05/21/2008

    Well this should help clear up any confusion with whether this truly is a Unitasker or not.

    http://www.amazon.com/Krups-He.....B00132J8RA

    Now with the rise of craft and mini-brewery beer in America, it would make sense to jump onto the mini-keg wagon. But that’s just wishful thinking.

  6. Posted by Marissa - 05/21/2008

    Nice! I just saw this in the store today, and my fiance and I were joking about putting it on our registry. He chimed in that the beer probably wouldn’t even last long enough to bother with the handy temperature control.

  7. Posted by Joe - 05/22/2008

    I live in Germany and these are very very popular. I find it is a great way to cut clutter as Will said, by reducing the number of bottles you have floating around. It keeps the beer cool for up to 14 days and works with any 5 liter keg. Being in Germany there are many to choose from.

    Still if you are only the occasional beer drinker it could be an unnecessary uni-tasker.

    @Marissa… I would put it on the registry as item # 1… :)

  8. Posted by David - 05/22/2008

    mmmm, PBR

  9. Posted by Greg - 05/22/2008

    This was my first thought when I saw that thing in Bed Bath & Beyond. What happens if Heineken ever stops making their little 5 liter keg?

    If multiple beer companies sold 5 liter kegs, I would probably get one of these. But as it is, only Heineken sells them, and who knows how long they’ll be available.

  10. Posted by KM - 06/10/2008

    Would LOVE to have Sam Adams out of one of those things!

  11. Posted by JFKG - 07/21/2008

    So…some people say you can use other 5L mini-kegs and others say no. Has anyone actually used a different 5L mini-kegs than Heineken for this to verify that it does in fact work on different beer brands ???

  12. Posted by Mike O - 08/14/2008

    This would be the coolest unitasker ever,if it worked with Corona Lite. Mmmmmmm – CORONA!!!

  13. Posted by Shaun Krisher - 09/11/2008

    I am live-blogging a product photography shoot, and one of my items was this unitasker. Just thought I’d drop you a link to see the shots and setup and stuff.

    http://unclutterer.com/2008/05.....eertender/

  14. Posted by Shaun Krisher - 09/11/2008

    oops, wrong link in the copy buffer:

    http://shaunkrisher.wordpress......phy-shoot/

  15. Posted by JPLemme - 12/14/2008

    One thing they don’t mention about the 5L kegs is that as you drink the beer, you don’t gain space in the fridge. At least when I buy a 12-pack I gain space as I drink the bottles. So this…thing eliminates that problem by getting the keg out of the fridge and onto the counter. (Where I have more space?)

    But then there’s the issue that I generally don’t like to drink five liters of the same beer. I usually buy variety packs so I can mix it up.

    And finally, bottles help me monitor my beer intake. I always seem to drink more when all I have to do is pull a lever to refill my glass.

  16. Posted by chris - 02/01/2009

    To clear up the confusion on this board, you CAN NOT USE OTHER KEGS than Heineken. I’ve tried. It’s BS since Heineken is just OK beer. Unless someone has a hack? We got our beertender for free so no complaints, but just so you know.

Subscribe to this entry's comments

Post a comment