To keg or not to keg

We were going to do a keg, but found it cheaper, easier, and slightly cheaper to do bottles. We bought 3 different kinds so we had a variety instead of just one kind. One thing you have to think about with a keg is how are you going to keep it cold? This was a major contributor to us deciding against it. We were going to have to do a big trash can filled with ice, not very classy.

We're kegging our reception. It was the more economical route for our crowd.

Hey there! This is a truly great question!

The best advice I can give you is you consider how much beer you expect your guests to drink, then weigh up the cost of a keg versus the cost of the equivelant amount of beer in bottles/cans.

Another cost to consider for a keg is that you will need a substantial amount of beer glasses, where you wouldn’t have this cost if you were serving bottles of beer.

I spoke with multiple bartending vendors and they all said kegs are a pain. They're messy, have to be temperature controlled with a kegerator or the beer is foamy, and come with a bunch of other costs (renting the keg itself and the pump). At the end of the night, if there is any left over beer, you're stuck with it. I found bottles to be cheaper and a lot of stores have an unopened return policy. My advice is to take that route.

We went for cans and bottles for a few reasons— variety (we were able to offer 4 options) but most especially that cans and bottles keep! It’s hard to guess how much of what everyone will drink and we didn’t want to run out, so we were able to over buy without worry as we could always keep and drink/use any extra !

We did bottles and cans - much less mess than keg beer and cups. Also were able to have a few different kinds and didn't want to run out. With buying lots of cases, we were able to return any unopened ones the next day so we had plenty.