Carlsberg expands market for draught beer

16/03/06 Carlsberg has launched a new draught beer system for professional and private users under the name DraughtMaster. The professional system offers customers a number of benefits, like perfect taste every time, easy handling, one-way kegs, 21 days shelf-life from first serve, perfect temperature control and very easy cleaning and maintenance.

A special home version of DraughtMaster offers the consumers a whole new opportunity to enjoy fresh and cold draught beer at home, served directly from the tap.

Carlsberg is the only brewery in the world offering this new technology, replacing metal kegs with plastic (high barrier PET) kegs – a system protected worldwide by principal patents.

The new Carlsberg DraughtMaster system is launched in Denmark, Norway, Portugal and Sweden today. Later, the system will also be launched in other countries, inside and outside Europe.

The major gain is that the genuine taste of draught beer is preserved all the way from the brewery to the consumer - due to the DraughtMaster keg being a completely sealed system. The beer keg (barrel) is filled with ready-to-drink beer in a new optimized process that allows no oxygen to enter the keg. Without oxygen the process of decay has no nourishment and the beer stays fresh.

When the waiter pours the beer the keg is compressed from the outside leaving no room for surplus oxygen which in a totally natural way keeps the beer in fresh “brewery quality” for at least 21 days.

The new and innovative system enables outlets with a relatively low volume to serve draught beer of excellent quality.

With a home system - the size of a small espresso machine with a 5-litre keg - to be launched very soon, thousands of kitchen table outlets are expected to be added to the customer list.

Today, many small outlets prefer bottled beer because it has a long shelf life and very limited installation costs. With the new Carlsberg DraughtMaster system installation and maintenance costs are significantly reduced for both customers and Carlsberg, and waste due to out-of-date beer is eliminated. DraughtMaster introduces the longest beer shelf life ever after first serving, thanks to the natural and unique preservation capabilities of the new system.

“DraughtMaster is the answer to many smaller outlets’ wish to serve fresh and cold draught beer. Results from our field studies make us very confident, that we have found the key to a new market where draught beer has never been available, because it did not deliver a satisfactory profitability to the customer due to the low throughput,” says Nils S. Andersen.

He adds that the exquisite taste and the flexibility make the system interesting for almost all existing Carlsberg outlet customers as well. Further, there is a keen interest from consumers to get the taste of draught beer into their homes and the up-coming launch of a home system based on the same pioneering technology looks like a very promising market opportunity.