History of the Kegerator

Before getting into heated disputes with passionate drinkers over the proper temperature at which to drink beer, take a minute to appreciate your fortune for being born in an era where cold is the standard. From its crude beginnings in Egypt to as recently as the early 19th Century, the trend was a frothy, room temperature brew bearing no semblance to our current preferred tastes.

Warm Beer for the Ages
If you are one to mind traditions or long for the way things used to be, it appears warm beer was only that way because it had to be. There were a handful of pundits in the Middle Ages who recorded a preference for warm beer, but by and large, we assume the man on the street knew only warm ale. The widespread preference for cold beer is evidenced with the onset of commercial refrigeration. Chilling beer quickly became one of the first applications of the new technology.

Teetotalers and Soda Jerks
While refrigeration made the kegerator popular and technologically feasible, prohibition and the popularity of soda slowed the onset of widespread beer refrigeration outside of the largest cities. Prohibition in particular hindered the preponderance of easily accessible cold beer by focusing primarily on easily transported, compact spirits.

The Glory Days
Flash forward past the beer revolution of the early 20th Century and both World Wars. The kegerator is finally on the rise after the repeal of Prohibition and the return to peacetime. As concerns move from the war and employment toward ways to efficiently enjoy leisure time, Americans began tinkering with kegerators.

Rural folk in particular wanted to make fresh beer at home. Lager, among the most popular styles of beer, requires several stages of refrigeration during production to produce the crisp, clear appearance indicative of a quality brew. While the first few decades were undoubtedly marked by clumsy attempts at refrigeration and imperfect brews, by the 1980s home brewers had paved the way for the kegerator as a mainstay in the serious beer drinker's home.