POURING a pint in your kitchen with a frothy head is the absolute dream – but are at-home draft beer pumps worth the money?
Prices vary from around £100 up to £500 or more – and that’s before you factor in the cost of the beer itself.
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And while you can use cans of beer from your fridge in some of them, others require their own keg.
The price of a pint in a pub has soared this year – it now costs as much as £8 for a beer in some locations, and one bar is selling the UK’s most expensive beer for £80 a pint.
So it’s no wonder people are staying home instead and investing in their own kit.
We’ve tested four of the most popular models to find our favourite.
In our test, we compared ease of set up, price, ease of use, beer taste, and overall experience to give a total score.
Here’s what we found out:
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Phillips Perfect Draft Pro
- Price: £385
- Cost per pint: £3.25
- Size: 44.5 x 29.4 x 40cm
- Weight: 8.3kg
- Capacity: 6 litres
The Perfect Draft machine was incredibly easy to set up – it was all done in a few minutes.
Although cooling the keg takes around 10-hours so this is one to prepare in advance.
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The machine was heavy though, and I couldn’t lift the box myself.
It’s quite plain looking but I liked that you could customise the beer pump with a selection of badges.
I also liked the easy-to-read temperature display on the front and the indicator which tells you how full your keg is.
And there’s an eco-friendly feature – you can return your keg when it’s finished and you’ll get £5 off your next order.
The first beer poured out a bit “lively” as they say in the industry, but after that it came out very easily and made me look like a professional pint pourer.
You’ve got 30 days to drink your beer once the keg is open.
Replacements cost from around £30 to £40 depending on which beer you choose. They are all six litres, giving you just over 10 pints.
A £32.50 keg of Stella Artois would work out at around £3.25 per pint. That’s our priciest pint of the machines we tested – but it was the best.
Overall, this was my winner. It poured really nicely and was like a pint that you’d get in the pub, plus I liked the display features.
I still don’t think I’d invest in one though – I don’t have the space at home. However, if you’re someone with a bar or dedicated man cave (or just a really big kitchen) then this would be a nice luxury to treat yourself.
- Ease of set up 5/5
- Price 3/5
- Ease of use 5/5
- Beer taste 4/5
- Overall 4/5
- Total score: 21/25
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Fizzics DraftPour Beer Dispenser
- Price: £129.99
- Cost per pint: the price of your can/bottle. We had a can of Brewdog Planet Pale which cost us £1.50.
- Size: 26 x 15 x 43cm
- Weight: 1.9kg
- Capacity: one can/bottle
This one came in a close second place.
Around the same size as a coffee machine, the Fizzics device took less than a minute to get set up and didn’t take over my entire kitchen worktop.
You have two options for power, which is handy – it can be plugged in to the mains or work off 2AA batteries.
So not only is this the only machine we tested that’s portable, it’s also the only one that doesn’t require you to buy a specific keg.
Instead you simply insert the bottle or can of beer you want to drink and it is simply dispensed through the machine.
That made it super easy to use, but it felt a bit pointless.
Fizzics says it uses sonic wave technology so you get a draft taste from any can or bottle of beer.
It claims to enhance the aroma and give you a smooth mouthfeel.
But we tasted the same beer straight from the can and it didn’t taste notably different.
Still, it’s the only one you can use straight from the box as the machine doesn’t need time to cool your beer – you’ll just have to make sure the fridge is stocked in advance.
- Ease of set up 5/5
- Price 4/5
- Ease of use 5/5
- Beer taste 3/5
- Overall 2/5
- Total score: 19/25
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Blade countertop draught system
- Price: £475 (starter pack includes two 8litre kegs)
- Cost per pint: £2.50
- Size: 59 x 47 x 29cm
- Weight: 17.6kg
- Capacity: 8 litres
I initially thought this machine was the ugliest of the bunch but my husband insisted the temperature gauges, high-quality drip tray and the fact you can see the keg were all very appealing.
He said it had strong “man cave vibes” but, frankly, I was more concerned about how heavy it was to lug around.
Set up was a bit more involved than some of the others, but it was in place within 10 minutes.
It does, however, require 24 hours of cooling so if you were having mates over you would need to prepare this the day before.
I have seen these used in bars and pubs so I had high expectations for the pour and it didn’t disappoint – it’s a very professional beer that comes out of the pump, chilled to a refreshing 2 degrees.
Once you open the keg, you have 30 days to consume – but you’ll have to keep the machine plugged in.
But I struggled to get past the price point. Replacement kegs are around £35 each too, although this varies depending on which beer or cider you choose.
The kegs are 8 litres, which is 14 pints (a pint is 568ml), putting the cost at around £2.50 a pint.
The machine scored high on flavour but lost points overall because the price point will be beyond many people’s reach.
It was harder to set up because of its weight and had the longest cooling time of the bunch.
- Ease of set up 3/5
- Price 2/5
- Ease of use 4/5
- Beer taste 5/5
- Overall 4/5
- Total score: 18/25
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Krups The Sub
- Price: £125
- Cost per pint: £2.71
- Size: 45 x 33.5 x 23.5cm
- Weight: 6.8kg
- Capacity: 2 litres
I thought The Sub looked very cool – it’s a bit different to other machines as the keg that goes inside is laid on its side rather than upright, which gives this device is cylindrical “submarine” design.
The instructions were the most confusing of the ones we tested, as some of the diagrams were a bit difficult to understand – but it still only took five minutes or so to get set up.
It didn’t feel as high quality to use though – the tap felt quite flimsy and the drip tray is quite cheap looking.
It was also quite difficult to pour a decent beer from this one, and there was a lot of froth in my pint.
The kegs for this machine are 2 litres – which is around 3.5 pints – so you wouldn’t need to be throwing a huge party to justify firing it up. Cooling takes 6-10 hours.
The kegs cost between £8 and £17 from BeerWulf. A £9.49 keg of Heineken works out at around £2.71 a pint.
- Ease of set up 3/5
- Price 4/5
- Ease of use 4/5
- Beer 2/5
- Overall 3/5
- Total score: 16/25
Elsewhere, we tested supermarket own-brand burgers to find the best for the barbecue.
And we tried out all the own-brand washing powders to see which one cleaned up.
