HOUSTON – You can pop a bottle cap or pull a tap. If you like beer, you probably have a preference: draught or bottle. For those times when you are home and draught beer is not an option, the Tap Pro claims it can instantly turn bottled beer into draft beer. We tested it on two beer aficionados to see if they can taste the difference.
What: Tap Pro
Cost: $9.88 at Walmart
Claim: “Instantly turn bottled beer into draft beer!”
“Tastes like fresh from the tap!”
Blind Taste Test
Flying Saucer Draught Emporium in downtown Houston has dozens of beers on tap.
“I think I think the general consensus is that draft beer is generally fresher,” said Flying Saucer manager Joshua Justice.
Justice picked three beers that they carry both in bottles and on tap. He put the Tap Pro bottle adapter on the bottles before pouring them and serving both the bottled beer and the draught beer to testers Mike Stockman and meteorologist Justin Stapleton.
We asked them to tell us which beer actually came from a tap and which beer is from the bottle.
Justice said the Tap Pro works kind of like a wine aerator.
“It’s aerating the beer,” he explained. “It’s putting it through a sieve, which is going to pull some of the carbonation out. So I think that anything that comes out of that device is going to taste a little bit softer.”
The testers tried these beers from the bottle and the tap:
- Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
- Saint Arnold’s Texas Winter IPA
- Deschutes Black Butte Porter
Verdict: Somewhere between true and false
Both Mike and Justin guessed correctly which beer was from the tap and which was the bottled beer two out of three tries.
The Tap Pro tricked them each a third of the time into thinking bottled beer was actually from the tap.
But would they buy it to use at home?
“If it was a daily thing, I wouldn’t do it just to do it,” said Mike.
“Me, personally by myself no,” Justin said.
“For $10, is it something fun to have around the house where you can play guessing games?” asked Justice. “I think it’s awesome. It’s super fun.”
Our testers and Justice agreed that the Tap Pro works best for porters or stouts, not IPA’s since it works like an aerator to pull some of the carbonation out of the beer.
They said people who like IPA’s usually like the crispness and the carbonation.