Dispensing Stout

Couple of questions on stouts: I keg my brew, but have yet to do a stout...

-What happens if you just dispense stouts out picnic taps, good taste / bad ect...Give me all your thoughts on that?

-Do you need a different kind of tank to dispense beer gas (co2/nitrogen mix)?

-How necessary to dispense using the special stout facet?

-How necessary to dispense with beer gas / what if I used c02?

Thanks in advance. This form is my brewing bible.

I have a little bit of experience with this. I have tasted the same batch of my stout from:
- bottle (bottled from keg)
- regular tap on CO2
- stout tap on CO2
- stout tap on beer gas

Short answer is that the list above is in my order of preference. It all tastes good, but the stout tap really strips all the carbonation out of the beer, giving it a nice creamy head and drastically changing the way the beer feels. Beer gas seems to give an even creamier feel, but to me it wasn't a huge difference.

The big thing with a stout tap is to make sure you don't over carb the beer, or it will take you forever to pour a pint. I carb mine to around 1 volume and that seems to work fine.

Personally, I have a kegerator that has about 2 foot of hose between the keg and the normal tap that I use for my other beers... (i know that it is too close because it foams like mad, but some extra tubing will solve that)

I just use straight Co2... so I can't answer your questions about nitrogen. With all of the stouts i've done, I haven't had any complaints and enjoy the beer very much.

I've also taken the kegs to parties and used a picnic tap and there wasn't any off flavor.... just make sure you've santitized everything and you should be good to go.


I know that some people might say differently, but i've never had any issues going through my normal equipment for stouts.

I dont think it matters what tap you use to dispense it, if the hose and pressure is balanced and you force carb it slowly by doing the "set to serving pressure and forget it method", I think it will tast great.