Drinking Your Dinner

So if you take an empty beer keg, saw it in half lengthways, turn it on its side and weld on some legs and hinges and fill it with charcoal and set it on fire, it’ll smoke a mean bratwurst. Possibly on the extreme end of the DIY spectrum, but I discovered the product in the lawn and garden section of the National Hardware Show, where pretty much anything goes. I was out scouring the show for ideas for our “green” issue when the Keg-A-Que booth caught my eye. Adaptive reuse? Beer? It doesn’t take much to get me interested.

We got to talking, and the company’s president told me he and his brother are a couple of Wisconsin boys who were down in Arizona going to school when their mom sent them a care package of the finest local bratwursts. They didn’t have a grill on hand, but, being college students, they did have a few kegs out back. A gnarled hacksaw and three broken band saw blades later, necessity precipitated another great American invention.

Miller Brewing Company got word that the entrepreneurs were out cutting up their kegs and decided to get in the grill game as well. They ordered 20,000 units in the first two years, which got the company off the ground but also forced the manufacturers to begin pressing new keg-shaped vessels instead of reusing old ones (so much for the “green” angle.) Twelve years and over 400,000 grills later, Miller is still a current licensee.

While beer and brats have gone hand in hand for years, turning the keg itself into a grill still seems dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before somebody chugs the lighter fluid.