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Kegs & Accessories

Welcome to your one-stop solution for kegs and accessories to help you package and distribute your beer/beverage you worked hard on to produce. At UBC Group, we are proud to be the leading Canadian supplier of beer & beverage kegs, keg accessories and keg services.

Feel free to browse our catalog to find the right keg for your draft beer setup. If you are not sure which keg to choose, please contact our sales representative for a professional consult and friendly advice.

What We Offer

Whether you represent a craft brewery, cidery, winery home brewer or major brewing operation, here you will find the kegs and accessories to match your budget and stylistic preferences.

  • Stainless steel kegs
    • Cornelius kegs
    • Schafer kegs
    • Cask kegs
  • Keg accessories
    • Keg stackers and spacers
    • Keg caps
    • Keg spears & parts
    • Cask keg accessories

In addition, we provide keg branding and customization services. You can have your brand name embossed, printed, or etched onto a keg - please see our branded keg portfolio for more information and examples. We customize kegs both in Canada and in Europe.

What Makes Us a Top Keg Supplier

Among our clients are major breweries, wineries, and beverage manufacturers all across Canada. We give the best prices on new, custom-branded stainless steel kegs and a wide choice of accessories. Not only that, we manufacture commercial draft equipment to store kegs in such as kegerators, allowing us to offer everything from keg to tap.

We handle large-volume orders like no other supplier - quickly and efficiently. Shipping products across Canada from our warehouses in Mississauga, ON and Surrey, BC, we offer reliable and honest service to make sure UBC customers are satisfied.

Kegs 101

The keg itself is a pressurized container with beer in it. Kegs are designed for storing, transporting, and dispensing beer. Despite the popular opinion, there is no such style of beer as “keg beer” – this term only indicates that this beer came from a keg since almost all beer manufacturers use kegs for their beer in one way or another. However, it does differ in taste from bottled beer or cask ale.

The way a keg operates is much like a can of soda. The beer in a keg is usually pasteurized or filtered to make sure there are no more active ingredients in them, which:

  • prolongs the shelf life of the beer
  • ensures the same quality and taste of the beer across the board

These characteristics are what really make kegs so coveted for breweries and pubs. Aside from that, kegs allow beer to be distributed in larger volumes at a time, helping breweries and restaurants to bring in more profits per ounce of beer, as opposed to any other packaging method. A properly balanced draft system to dispense the beer will allow the same level of carbonation that the brewer intended for each brand, and therefore gives the customer the closest experience to if they were enjoying the beer right at the brewery that made it.

How Does a Keg Work?

Although kegs are pressurized, the pressure itself will not push the beer to the top effectively. Therefore, gas regulators are used to push the beer at the bottom of the keg up the valve, through the lines and out of the taps. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most commonly used gas but for some beers such as Guinness, nitrogen is used instead to create a smoother beer with a cascade-effect and creamy head.

If your keg is equipped with a FOB (Foam on beer detector), the system will cut off the beer supply when the keg is empty, which is a clear indicator that the keg needs to be changed.

Different Types of Keg Couplers

Although most kegs look and operate the same, there is one notable difference - the type of connection between the keg and the beer/air line.

The connecting device is called a keg coupler and there are six major types of keg couplers, depending on the manufacturer of beer. Obviously, you need to know which keg is being used to tap it correctly since these different keg couplers are not compatible with each other.

The six main types of keg couplers are:

  • D-type coupler (the most common type in North America, fits US Sankey keg valves)
  • S-type coupler (popular in Europe, this type is used for beers like Heineken and Pilsner Urquell)
  • U-type coupler (commonly used for kegs made in Europe and beers like Guinness, Harp and Smithwick’s)
  • A-type coupler (aka “the German slider-style keg coupler”, it used for German beers like Carlsberg and Franziskaner)
  • M-type coupler (it is used for German beers like Einbecker and Schneider)
  • G-type coupler (it is used by a few breweries Fuller’s and Grolsch)