When I kegged my latest batch I decided it was a great time to try the Nukatap Ball Lock Flow Control Mini Faucet on one of my one-gallon mini kegs. Up until now I've been using the Picnic Tap 2.1 (I have four of these) and have been pretty pleased with them, but the new Nukatap mini faucet setup was too slick not to try.

Why not use the faucets that come with mini kegs? They suck. Just don't even bother. Without any sort of flow control and a beer line that short, all you're going to get is foam. I mean I suppose you could experiment with a restrictor on the beer line of some sort but that'd be a huge pain, or you're faced with running a beer line which makes for a much less compact (and potentially problematic for different reasons) setup. So if you haven't used mini kegs before my absolute by far #1 recommendation is get a faucet with flow control. Oh and spring for ball lock lids too -- you won't be sorry.

Nukatap Mini Faucet and a Less-Than-Optimal CO2 Regulator Situation

Sermon over. Back to the Nukatap -- the first thing I noticed as with all things KegLand is the build quality is great. It feels weighty and solid, and not that the Picnic Tap 2.1 feels cheap, but this definitely seems like a nicer faucet.

The other great feature with this Nukatap setup is the flow control ball lock. The flow control on the Picnic Tap is in the "dial" nozzle itself, which is OK, but since that's also the on/off for the pour itself, you're essentially faced with futzing with it every time. With the Duotight flow control you can set it and forget it (once you play around and find the sweet spot for your beer), and it also has a HUGE range compared to the Picnic Tap.

I will say one thing I do like about the Picnic Tap is since you can easily control the flow as you're pouring, if you notice you aren't getting as much head as you'd like, you can constrict things towards the end of the pour to get more foam going. That's possible with the Nukatap setup as well but it'd be a lot harder to pull off, and since the Nukatap is a more traditional faucet, probably not a trick you need to pull.

The Nukatap also pours much faster (depending on your flow control of course) than the Picnic Tap and you can pour pretty quickly and still not get too much foam. Again, it feels and works more like a regular beer faucet, whereas the Picnic Tap is a bit of a different beast.

Bearing in mind the Nukatap faucet is mostly plastic, it has a very nice feel to it when you pull forward to pour, and it stays open until you push back just like a traditional faucet (unless you have self-closing springs, of course).

How does it pour? Take a look! (And like/subscribe/share and all that jazz, it's my first video!)

All told this is a great little faucet, and while the Picnic Tap is also nice, the Nukatap is -- to me -- quite a bit nicer and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a tap you can connect directly to a ball lock on a mini keg.

Interestingly, I just noticed that the latest incarnations of the Picnic Taps are shipping with the same Duotight flow control ball lock connector, so it may actually just boil down to if you want to dial your flow with the Picnic Tap, or pull it more like a real faucet with the Nukatap.

Soon I'll also need to post a review of the KegLand Core 360 Mini CO2 Regulator, which is another great addition to a mini-key setup, and solves the problem you see in the image above. I mean reading upside-down isn't the end of the world, but having that CO2 canister sticking up like that can be avoided.