the haraldsons

Having gotten into brewing my own beer in the past year I’d grown quite sick of having to bottle it all because of the time it requires to do it. Hanging out in the Northern Brewer forums I was amazed at some of the cool kegerators that the forum members had built themselves. The best thing about having your own kegerators is that instead of two hours of bottling it only takes about ten minutes to get your beer into a keg and then instead of waiting 3 week for it to naturally carbonate itself you can force carbonate your beer with co2 and have it ready to go in about five days or even less if you want.

The majority of kegerators that I had seen pictures of online were bare bones kegerators built for the sole purpose of dispensing beer. I had grander ideas. When Laura, who was my girlfriend at the time, purchased her house she had always said she’d like to have a bar for entertaining in the basement. I figured this was the perfect reason to combine our two wishes together. A bar for entertaining, with a kegerators built in for dispensing beer.

After a little research online I decided on a design in my head (drawings? plans? Hah!) and headed to Home Depot to purchase the base for what would someday become the Haraldson Family Brewpub

At Home Depot I found a seven cubic foot chest freezer made by Magic Chef. I picked out this freezer because of its ability to hold at least four corny kegs or one full size half barrel. My fly by the seat of the pants approach was tested as we went to put it in the back of my car. If it was just an inch bigger it wouldn’t have fit.

Once I had gotten the freezer home the first thing I needed to do was remove the lid. The reason for doing this is so that I can build a wooden collar that will extend the height of my freezer. This will allow for more room for the corny kegs, tubing and fittings etc. It will also allow me to mount a distributor and any gauges that I might like to have inside.