Here’s a neat bit of trivia for any beer enthusiast to know: the familiar Bass red triangle logo was the first trademark to be registered under the Trade Mark Registration Act of 1875. Priorities. I dig it.

However, this post isn’t about Bass. It’s about a fellow English ale and second cousin once removed to Bass – Newcastle Brown Ale.

I got into a conversation with Josh about Sam Adams Utopias (which he wrote about here and which I am eternally jealous of him tasting) and eventually led to an assignment involving myself and a Newcastle 5L DraughtKeg . Josh delivered this to me in a MetRX “Strongest Man Competition” style, with a loud echoing *TING* on my desk.

It already being a popular beer, I had trouble coming up with a different way of thinking about it in all its metric-y glory. I gave it some thought and realized that I – and I imagine many others – have only had Newcastle out of the recognizable clear bottle. I tend to stay away from clear-bottle beers because of the possibility of “skunking” from sunlight, so I don’t often get NBA. This is the beerquivalent of saying, “the book was better.” I know. Not Inflatable Water Slide that I don’t trust the fine people at Scottish & Newcastle to take good care of their babies, but it’s one of the more disappointing things that can happen when crackin’ a cold one. Take a gander at the chart below:

Anyway, I thought I would put the DraughtKeg to the test by pitting it against its bottle equivalent in a blind taste test. Where O where would I find willing participants on a Friday evening? With promises of Dominos pizza (new recipe is +, btw) and a Chicago Bulls win, I found some lovely participants. Their names have not been changed to protect any sort of innocence – they’re all guilty of something: Max, Cody, Matt, Dan and Caro.

The methodology was pretty simple – each participant was given a 4oz sample of NBA from the keg and bottle, asked which one they thought was which and then to choose which they preferred. The results:

I’d like to point out that only my good friend Max failed to identify the source. Tsk tsk. What was interesting, however, was that 3 of the 5 preferred the taste of the DraughtKeg to the bottle.

I admit there may have been some bias due to the difference in temperature between the two. The keg had been waiting patiently in the extra-cool confines of my fridge, causing the bottled NBA to turn bitter with jealousy in 7-11’s fridge down the street. No, but all of the participants mentioned that temperature had an impact on their preferred choice. If I were to do this experiment again, I’d make sure they were refrigerated in the same environment.

So if the two were the same temperature, would the taste be indistinguishable? My crack team of scientists exclaimed, “NAY!” The second comment regarding difference was carbonation. If I had to make a comparison, I’d say that keg NBA was similar in CO2 level to that in Orangina. This is fine with me since I think carbonation acts as a mustache for beer – like maybe it has something to hide… If I want a super carbonated beverage, I’ll jam some Pop Rocks and slug a BL.

All in all, I would recommend the Newcastle DraughtKeg to anyone looking for a change. For around 23 clams you get 5L (about 10 pints, 14 bottles) of a solid brew that stays fresh for a full month. I would also suggest keeping it as cold as possible and putting a napkin under the spout since you’ll always have a few post-drips. It’s a nice alternative to bottles and has less waste. Save the environment! Get a Newcastle DraughtKeg!