How to Buy a Beer Tap System for Home Kegs with Cornelius Connections

A home keg tap system for Cornelius (NC or Corny) kegs comes down to three things: a keg with the right fitting, a CO2 supply with a regulator, and a tap or dispensing head built for that connection. At VISION.BEER in Biberist we sell the full chain, from our Bierbrunnen Schweiz party cooler with its 9.5 L Cornelius keg to the iTAP by Boel dispensing and bottle-filling range.

Key Takeaways

• The Bierbrunnen Schweiz dispenses one 9.5 L Cornelius keg from a 50 L party cooler fridge with a built-in SodaStream connector.
• iTAP by Boel switches between a tap and a counter-pressure bottle filler by changing the adapter, covering crown-cap, swing-top, PET and champagne bottles.
• iTAP 2 pours two different beers through one tap, useful if you want to run two kegs side by side.
• The American Homebrewers Association notes a full CO2 cylinder holds about 800 PSI, which is why every keg tap setup needs a regulator.
• Pre-filled Bierbrunnen kegs need one to two days' rest after transport before you tap them.

What Parts Make Up a Home Keg Tap System?

A basic setup needs four parts: a Cornelius (NC) keg to hold the beer, a CO2 supply (soda-stream-bottles) with a regulator to push it through the line, a tap or dispensing head sized to your keg fitting, and hose plus connectors between them. Get any one piece wrong and the rest won't seal or pour properly.

Buying piece by piece works, but it's easy to end up with a fitting that doesn't match your keg or a tap head with no regulator behind it. That's the gap we built our two main product lines to close: the Bierbrunnen Schweiz as a complete cabinet, and the iTAP by Boel range as a modular tap-and-filler system you build around whatever kegs you already run.

Bierbrunnen Schweiz: A Complete Cornelius Keg Dispensing Cabinet

The Bierbrunnen Schweiz is a 50 L party cooler fridge with a 9.5 L Cornelius keg built in, plus room left over for a SodaStream cartridge or a few extra bottles. The tap tower sits on a lid that doubles as insulation, with Armaflex fitted underneath a wood, bamboo, beech or chrome-steel cover.

You can configure it however you like: cover material, tap tower finish in black or chrome, and whether the tower sits centered or offset on the plate. The cabinet ships with a pre-assembled tap and tower, an NC-NC transfer assembly, and the SodaStream connection with its own pressure reducer already fitted. Optional extras include a drip tray, a writable tap handle, basket-fitting and flat-fitting transfer assemblies for NC, a closure plug, and an outdoor cover if it's living on a terrace.

If you'd rather skip the first brew, order the Bierbrunnen with a keg already filled with our own Bünzli Ale, Flösser Helles, Bibergail Märzen or Holzstächer Amber. Give a pre-filled keg one to two days to rest after transport before you tap it, so the beer settles and pours clean instead of foaming everywhere.

iTAP by Boel: One System for Tapping and Bottle Filling

The iTAP range runs on one simple idea: the same body works as a tap, and swaps to a counter-pressure bottle filler when you change the adapter. The standard configuration comes with a G-Connector and a crown-cap filler included, and it handles crown-cap long neck, crown-cap short neck, swing-top, PET and champagne bottles. The tap disassembles without tools for cleaning, which matters if you're switching between beers.

To pre-pressurise bottles before filling you need a CO2 line running to the tap itself, separate from the line feeding the keg. That means you'll want a Y splitter to send one CO2 line to the tap and another to the keg, rather than trying to run both off a single line.

Two variants sit alongside the standard iTAP. The iTAP 2 pours two different beers through one tap, and can replace a standard iTAP in a setup where you're already running two kegs. The iTAP Pro is the professional variant in the same range, built for hobby brewers and gastronomy use where the tap sees heavier daily use.

We're the official KegLand distributor for Switzerland, based at Fabrikstrasse 3 in Biberist. We've brought the full iTAP by Boel lineup in alongside our KegLand equipment, from the standard filler through the iTAP 2 to the iTAP Pro.

Which System Fits Your Setup?