For you, The Discerning Kegger, these Perlick beer faucets are a thing of beauty. When you draw off a pint, they look good, operate smoothly, and don’t gum up. They are a breeze to take apart for sanitizing. These design benefits will have you sold on the lifetime value of these taps.
#1 Design Benefit - Forward Sealing
The #1 feature of the Perlick faucet is its forward sealing design. Why is that so important? In an ordinary, rear-sealing faucet, the entire faucet must drain out of beer. There is actually a pin hole in the back of an ordinary faucet that allows beer to drain out. Because beer drains from the entire faucet the faucet remains sticky and is prone to contamination from the left over residue. The Perlick faucet, with its forward sealing design, only has beer drain from the short 1" nozzle section. This allows it to always operate smoothly (even when it was not cleaned between uses) and greatly reduces contamination.
#2 Design Benefit - Stainless Steel
Standard old school faucets are made of brass that is plated in chrome. The chrome plating wears off and the Brass can pit. This can result in flavor contamination when your beer runs over exposed brass and pits which usually harbor bacteria.
In the late 90's, when the first stainless faucet was released, it cost close to $100. Wow. Now you can choose to get a traditional style faucet made out of stainless, but why would you bother when you can get this unique forward sealing design and stainless construction all in the same Perlick faucet?
Sure it costs a little more but you will never regret making the upgrade now.