How many beers are in a keg?
| Keg | Ounces | 16 oz pints | 12 oz pours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half barrel (15.5 gal) | 1,984 | 124 | 165 |
| Quarter / pony (7.75 gal) | 992 | 62 | 82 |
| Sixth barrel (5.16 gal) | 660 | 41 | 55 |
Those are perfect-world counts. In a real bar you lose some to foam, the first pours after a keg change, and line cleaning, so the calculator takes that out first.
usable ounces = keg ounces × (1 − loss) pours = usable ounces ÷ pour size cost per pour = keg price ÷ pours price to charge = cost per pour ÷ target pour costA worked example
A half barrel holds 1,984 ounces. Losing 5% leaves 1,885, or 117 full pints. At $150 a keg each pint costs $1.28, and at a 22% pour cost you'd charge $5.83, rounded up to $6.00.
What's a good beer pour cost?
Draft beer is often priced to a pour cost somewhere around 20% to 25%, a little higher than liquor. Check your real number by comparing kegs bought with pints rung up for a few weeks. A big gap usually means over-pouring or foam.