How many 16 oz cans are in a barrel?

How many beers are in a keg? It’s a question that comes up pretty much anytime a friend of mine has a party, or a wedding, or an event and they’re buying beer for a group of people—both “How many kegs do I need?” and “How many beers are in a keg?”

Luckily, it’s a question that I always have the answer to:

How Many Beers Are in a Keg?

The answer to this question depends entirely on what size keg you’re buying (shocker!).

Half Barrel
This size is what most people would recognize as “a keg”—a prop you would see in any college movie—but the “half barrel” name throws them off. One of these contains 15.5 gallons of beer. That means you can get 165 (12 oz) beers from it, or 124 (16 oz) beers, depending on your cups. If for some bizarre reason you’re buying a keg to fill growlers, you can fill 31 of them (of the standard 64 oz. variety) with a half barrel before you’ll run out of beer.

Quarter Barrel
Quarter barrel kegs are the second most common type of keg. These come in two different forms: a tall keg (the same height as the half barrel) but half the girth, and a size that maintains the same girth but cuts the height in half. These are also known as “pony kegs” and tall quarter kegs. With these, you get half of what you would get from a half barrel. That means each one has 7.75 gallons of beer inside, which equates to roughly 82 (12 oz) beers, 62 (16 oz) beers, or 15.5 growlers.

Sixth Barrel
You’re not going to see these around too much, but a sixth barrel (also called a sixtel) holds 5.16 gallons of beer. That equates to 56 (12 oz) beers and 42 (16 oz) beers. Most beer distributors don’t sell sixth barrel kegs, however, except for certain specialty beers.

Cornelius Keg
These 5-gallon kegs are typically used by home brewers, but you occasionally see a few breweries offering them for customers as well. The smallest of the bunch, a Cornelius Keg or “Corny” holds 5 gallons of beer, which equates to 53 (12 oz) beers, 40 (16 oz) beers, and 10 growlers. These are the kegs that homebrewers will often utilize as part of a kegerator setup, as 5 gallons is a common batch size for homebrew beer.

How Much Beer Do I Need?

That’s a good question. Can you ever have too much beer? Yes. The answer is yes. Determining how much beer you need, however, is a pretty simple process. I typically tell people to go by this simple formula, which so far has done me well.

Beer Only Events
If you’re only serving beer, plan on each person you’ve invited drinking one beer for every hour of the event. Sure, some people will only have one, but then there’s also that guy who will have seven during your three-hour wedding reception. The one beer per person per hour formula will ensure you have a reasonable amount of beer to keep everyone lubricated without having a massive amount left over when everyone heads home.

Beer, Spirits, and Wine Events
If you’re serving something other than beer at your event as well, then chances are good that people are going to drink that as well. For those type events, I typically suggest people buy enough that each person can have one beer for every two hours of the event. Know your crowd though. If you’re having a big super bowl party with your college buddies, then you might want to dial that beer number up. If you’re getting together with a bunch of wine enthusiasts, then you probably need to dial up your wine game rather than buying a ton of beer.

Don’t Be Afraid To Buy Bottles

One of the worst things you can do is dramatically overbuy beer in keg form. Unless you have a kegerator, once you tap your keg you essentially start a timer on how long it’s going to stay fresh and cold. That timeline moves even faster when you put that beer in a bucket full of ice that starts melting and your beer starts getting warm.

If you’re having a big party, definitely get a keg if you want one. You’d be better served, however, to buy a smaller keg in some cases than you need, and then supplementing that keg with a case or two of cans and bottles. Start with the keg, but if it runs out while the party is still going on, you can pull out the bottles or cans and keep things going. If you end up not needing the bottles, they’ll last a lot longer than that massive keg would.

How many ounces in a half barrel keg? According to standard United States measurements, a half-barrel keg is a total of 165 12-ounce pours. This is roughly 15.5 gallons.

Measurements of fluids (alcohol, water, etc.) differ depending on where you are in the world. This can cause some confusion when you are trying to work out how much fluid is in a certain drink because the measurement will differ and then you may need to convert it to a measurement you understand.

In this article, we will look at the facts and measurements surrounding this question to hopefully provide you with a bit more clarity.

How Many Ounces in a Half Barrel Keg?

Keg sizes and dimensions guide

Please note lbs = pounds.

The different keg sizes and names are used in different scenarios with different purposes. For this question (how many ounces are in a half-barrel keg), we will look at only the ½ keg measurements.

A Corny or Cornelius keg is used to store, dispense, and distribute soda.

A Sixtel or a Sixth barrel keg is used to store and distribute beer in restaurants as they take up less space, allowing restaurants to offer more options to fit in the additional space.

How many drinks are in a ½ barrel keg?

A ½ barrel keg contains 15.5 gallons of beer which is equivalent to 124 pints. So 165 12-ounce bottles of beer can be served from a ½ barrel keg.

How many does a ½ barrel keg serve?

What is a Pony Keg?

A pony keg, also known as a quarter barrel, is a beer container that contains approximately 7.75 US gallons of liquid which is equivalent to 29.33 liters of beer.

It is half the size of a US standard beer keg and is equivalent in size to a quarter of a barrel of beer.

How many 24 packs of beer are in a keg?

A keg is also known as a ½ barrel, which can confuse some people. A keg contains the same amount of liquid as a ½ barrel, 15.5 gallons, which means there are 165 12-ounce beers in a keg.

If you are using 16-ounce beer bottles, you can get 124 bottles from a keg.

How many schooners are in a keg?

A schooner is a measurement of a glass that is 175 x 285ml or 118 x 425ml. A 50-litre keg can give you 118 schooners.

Why is a keg called a half barrel?

A ‘barrel’ is a legal unit of measure that is used for export and import statistics. Legally in the US, a barrel by definition is 117 liters or 31 gallons of a fermented drink like beer.

The European keg (which contains 50 liters of 13 gallons of a beverage) is slightly smaller than the US barrel.

FAQ’s

How many beers is a ½ barrel keg?

A ½ barrel contains 15.5 gallons which is equivalent to 165 12-ounce bottles.

How many does a ½ barrel keg serve?

In a ½ barrel keg that contains 15.5 gallons of beer, you can get 248 8-ounce servings of beer.

How many 12 oz pours in a half barrel?

There are 124 16-ounce cans or bottles of beer in a full half kef, which is also called a half-barrel keg.

How many Fl oz are in a keg?

There are double the number of ounces in a full keg compared to a ½ keg barrel. Therefore, there are 3968 fluid ounces in a full keg.

How Many Ounces In A Half Barrel Keg – Conclusion

The question of ‘how many ounces in a half-barrel keg’ is an interesting but somewhat confusing concept.  Using a standard 12-ounce pour, there are 165 pours in a half-barrel keg.

So, in conclusion, there are roughly 1984 ounces of fluid (like a fermented beverage like beer) in a half-barrel keg.  This is equivalent to 15.5 gallons of liquid or 58.67 liters of fluid.

Now that we have looked at the information surrounding this topic a bit more, hopefully, it is a bit clearer. There will be some confusion still surrounding converting one measurement system to another, but hopefully, there is a bit more clarity now.

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