Store bought kegs?
 

So I'm down in the great outer banks and after our first night and first keg I heard the discussion. It was blamed on someone for their tapping abilities the way the keg lightly flowed. So I was wondering, as I've seen heavy and light flow kegs, and ones with lots of foam what causes this. After being on this site I was thinking it's force carbonation issues. Just a thought, any inputs?

Sometimes (most of the time?), commercial kegs come with a hand pump. People pump air into the keg to get the beer to flow. Usually, it's overdone and the beer foams all over the place. For forced carbing, usually it's because the lines to make it portable are too short. I take longer lines, and just coil them up with a zip tie and don't let anybody touch the co2 tank!

One other thing I've seen is operator error. People want to take just a little beer so they only open the tap a little bit. That causes tons of foaming. Kinda like a garden hose- pinch the end a little and you get much greater force coming out.

In addition to what Yoopie says, store bought kegs, the kegs will warm up during transport, and the beer will be agitated. This will result in foamy beer.

Allow the keg to settle and acclimate to refrigeration (CO2 application) or on ice (party dispensing application) for 2-4 hours prior to dispensing to prevent foamy beer.