Anyone using Party Pig and how good is it ?

I’m a retired guy that loves good ales and stouts, but I have to restrict my consumption because of medication conflicts --da** old age–and to keep from gaining too much weight. I usually only drink 1 beer with a meal and have about 4 to 5 bottles a week.

I go to about one party a year where several folks drink beer so investing $500.00 in a regular kegging system is hard for me to justify economically.

If the party pig works well I’d be tempted to try one, but I’d like some feedback from those who have used one.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

I’ve not used the party pig but I know folks that have and liked it.

Also, you don’t need to drop 500 on a kegging setup for occasional use. you can get a decent used pinlock keg for ~50-60, one of those portable chargers for another 40 and a pinic tap for 10 and be good to go for around 100.

you can prime a keg with sugar just like you prime bottles to carbonate the beer and then use the portable charger for dispensing.

I have a couple of them. One has been filled and untapped with a rye imperial stout since May 2013 and needs to get tapped soon.

They work decently and you can sometimes pick them up on ebay or craigslist for $25-30. The pressure pouches give you a little too much pressure and foam on the first couple pints but then it flows pretty much just like kegged beer. As you run low on beer the pressure isn’t perfect and it takes a while to pour a pint. The beer will last for a couple months or so.

Personally I use them without the pressure pouches and prime like bottles. (I take out the regulator as well.) I serve them up like casks. The first few pours come out like cask beer on an engine with a sparkler but then it mellows out to more of a gravity pour. So it’s kind of cool to taste the beer across that span of pressure. The downside with this approach is that air is filling up the headspace in the pig so you need to target consuming the whole thing in 2-3 weeks. Otherwise it starts to go stale. If 2.25 gallons is more than you drink in 2-3 weeks then I’d suggest using the pressure pouch or considering a different option.

jonathan points out good way to go. if you plan on brewing 5 gals or so, i’d just also buy a co2 tank and be done with it…not very expensive as compared to the portable co2 over time. you can brew 5 gals and drink it for quite some time at your leisure.  if you’re concerned about where to put a 5 gal corny, that might be another issue that could drive your cost up-but a used fridge might only cost you $75 or so and you can store the keg in there.

The Party Pigs are just OK, I had several of them a long time ago and gave them what I thought was a fair shot.  You still have to prime with sugar, as the pressure pouches only work to push beer out of the Pigs and do not carbonate the beer.  The pouches are a recurring cost which got pretty annoying for me.  And then the pressure pouches have to be “activated” by pumping air into the Pig with a clunky hand-pump.  Then when the pouch activates and fills the pig with pressure, you bleed off the air inside, and start dispensing.

There is a collar assembly which fits around the neck of the Pig to seal the push-button faucet into place.  It was more annoying for me to assemble than it should have been.  The last straw for the Pigs for me, was the time I thought I had installed the collar and tap, then pressurized the pig to activate the pressure pouch  The collar was in fact not installed snugly (operator error, I admit), but the activated pressure pouch caused beer to spew out of the pig until the pouch was spent.  It was an unholy mess.

I used to use one until I set up kegs years ago.  Using the pouch, the beer should stay carbonated just fine.  I liked the fact that it was a nice size to fit on a shelf in the fridge and it is approximately half a 5 gallon batch.  I used to bottle the other half.
I sometimes found it difficult to break the inner pouch using the pressure pump and started using CO2 to do this.  No matter what, the pouch brings back memories of 9th grade science experiments.
The tiny gasket is a bit of a pain to align properly.

I have not used the pig.  When I moved toward smaller sizes, I picked up some 3 gallon kegs.

One of the alternatives I saw this year was a product called the beerbox.

http://www.brewingtools.com/faq/

Looks like it works similarly to the pig, but uses tiny CO2 cartridges to  push the beer instead of the pouches.

I’ve read some bad reviews on the beerbox, hopefully it’s only teething pains on a new product.
I regularly use a Tap-A-Draft.