Anyone use The Party Pig?

[hubie]

At present I do not have a kegging setup. I've seen The Party Pig a few times at the LHBS but never really paid attention to it because I thought it was something like a Mr. Beer kit. Recently I looked a little closer and saw that it is simply a beer dispensing system, sort of a keg-lite system, if you will. It only holds 2.5 gallons, so I'd still bottle the other half of a batch, but it looks like it has potential. My first thought was to get one so that I could bring beer to a gathering or give beer to someone (expecting to get the empty container back, of course), but it looks like something that would fit in my fridge very nicely.

Basically I was wondering if anyone uses these, or knows someone who does. They look like they're about $50 or so, plus the time, effort and money of a half batch of beer to find out how well they work, so I was wondering if it was worth trying out. The way it works is that it has a special pouch that inflates and maintains a constant 15-20 psi internal pressure for dispensing. You still need to add priming sugar and let it naturally carbonate.

[Lerxst]

I don't know about the pig but there's plenty of feedback on the tap-a-draft system on some of the other forums. Might be worth investigating.

[brewskerdoo]

This might be a regional thing but around here, Coors Light is available in a "Home Draft" package. The package consists of a 1.5 gallon amber colored P.E.T. bottle with some sort CO2 charging and tapping contraption The whole thing is meant to be a one shot deal, drink it and toss it away.. or return it for the nickle deposit.
From what I gather though, the whole thing really is reusable without too much effort and there's a bunch of how to posts out there if you care to Google for them.
Might be a cheap alternative for you, especially if you know a Coors Light drinker.

[MadMatt]

I have a Tap-A-Draft and like it a lot. Don't plan on carbonating your beer in it though like a reg keg system. You can, but it takes about 4 cartridges of co2 and a week or so. I prime my TAD bottles with the the same ratio of priming sugar as I do my regular 12 oz bottles. The TAD uses 2 small cartridges of co2, not the airgun size. The coors and miller home drafts as mentioned above use the bigger co2 size, and have only one, but from what I've read other people trying to reuse them, the co2 doesn't always pierce correctly. But the bottles from these setups are the same as the TAD bottles ( same MFG ) I recommend the TAD over the pig personally. The "pouches" used in the pig always turned me off, seemed expensive, and proprietary supplies are ALWAYS a bad thing.

[salad 419]

A guy from one of the Homebrew Clubs owns this device. He says that the Pig Poops out about halfway through.

The TAD system has gotten favorable reviews.

[Frodo]

I have a Party Pig, got it last year for xmas. Used it once and it worked pretty good - took it to a party in a cooler and it was all the rage FWIW. You do use sugar to carbonate, and the capsule takes up the space as beer is dispensed. I remember lots of foam in the last 1/2 or so which was disappointing. Maybe it had warmed a bit too much? Then I had problems depressurizing the pig after it was empty... the directions said to loosen the bolts on the "neck" mechanism part way, then use a sharp object to poke a hole in the air bag inside... well there was no room to get anything sharp through the gap to stab the bag, so I kept loosening the bolts a little at a time and trying to get something through the opening to stab it. Eventually I loosened the bolts just a bit too much and BAM! Parts everywhere including the screwdriver. It took a week or so to find all the little bolts and even the screwdriver in my kitchen. I have one of the capsules left and was going to give the pig another shot recently, but couldn't find the capsule - maybe a blessing in disguise?