From the ashes of Dooferbook headquarters....the new and improved Casa de Spike 2.1!

The latest party rage in Germany? The Bier Bike! The one ton-plus vehicle seats up to 16, comes equipped with a keg with multiple taps and a sound system, and has a range of however far you and your buddies can pedal before the acid reflux kicks in and the beer starts flowing out in reverse. Rentals start at about $140/hr plus beer, which will set you back $5/liter.

Bier Bike Home Page
Bier Bike home page (translated)

                                                                              Kegerator Tutorial

I was admittedly late into the kegerator craze, but when I got back into brewing a few months ago and my spare fridge went tits-up, I knew I had to do something. I found several tutorials on building a kegerator for Cornelius-type kegs, and discovered there was only a couple of mid-size refridgerators that would work. Most this size have a freezer compartment at the top which make it impossible to fit a keg underneath. The Sanyo 4912 (about $200 at Best Buy) seemed to be the fridge of choice, so I picked one up and began modding it. Following a web tutorial , it took less than an hour to get it up and running. Sadly, it's been relegated to my workshop until I can find a place that works in the house...

 The dual-tap tower came from my local homebrew store. The tower ran about $140 and I spent about $70 on the higher end taps, one of which is designed to give you the 'nitrogen-type' effect like you get with real Guiness on tap. (You can also forgo the tower and stick the taps on door of the fridge). You can find these parts cheaper online, but I don't mind paying more at the local store because it would suck if they closed. All this stuff was ready to go right out of the box - it just needed a couple of cool handles.

  I had a 30mm round from way back when, which I dug out of the attic. It wasn't one of those shiny 'Wing Top Gun' trophy ones - Mongo won all those - just a drilled out TP round. My son got me into the auto hobby shop at his Marine base where they have a sandblaster that cleaned it up nicely. A few coats of lacquer and good to go! The B-8 stick grip was tough to find, and for those of you still in the service, I recommend procuring as many of these as you can find before you retire - they make great tap handles and if you get a real one, you can wire it to a bell or something and mount it on your bar. There's a place in Chicago that manufactures these things for the military, but they sell for about 5 grand. Fortunately I found a place on the net that has cast resin replicas for about 50 bucks, and since I didn't need any switch functions it was perfect.

The CO2 is routed through the back and the bottles sit outside, which makes them easy to change out and adjust. You can see that two Cornies fit nicely inside. It will also fit those commercial 1/6 kegs and pony kegs you get from the beer distributor - I haven't tried it with the standard size half-kegs. The keg on the left has my Marine buddy Dan's Hefeweisen in it, and the one on the right my extra-strong Scotch Ale. There's a keg of super hoppy Pale Ale and a Maple Stout waiting to be tapped, probably around the 19th. If anyone is in ATL and wants to try some, drop me a line... Cheers!

Click here for a YouTube video that shows how easy it is to build one of these out of the Sanyo 4912. Enjoy!