The Sub review: The perfect lockdown gadget for beer lovers
IT could be a while before an evening in the pub is back on the cards, but the good news is there’s an easy way of getting draft beer at home.
We review Beerwulf’s The Sub to see if it can replace some of the joys of the pub without leaving the house.
- The Sub, £99.99 at Beerwulf – buy here
Pros
- Pours great pints
- Loads of different beers to choose from
- Looks good
Cons
- More expensive than buying beer from shops
- Noisy when pouring
- Small size limits its usage
Beerwulf Sub review: Quick summary
The Sub is a real treat to have in your home and although it’s not perfect, we were happy to put up with its flaws to get a half decent pint.
After more than a year of not being able to sit inside a pub, The Sub goes some of the way to recreating the experience in your home.
The downsides are that it’s more expensive than buying cans from the off license, it’s a little noisy when it pours and it’s really designed for individual use rather than large groups. The upsides is that it pours great pints and it looks good on your kitchen side to boot.
It’s a perfect gift for a beer lover, especially since there’s loads of different beers to try, along with the old favourites. If you’ve got a few quid to spend on an important birthday or anniversary, The Sub is the way to go.
Beerwulf Sub: Full review
- The Sub, £99.99 at Beerwulf – buy here
Like plenty of the country, we’re badly missing an evening in the pub. And that’s not just because we’d like to see our friends with a roof over our heads; there’s something about a freshly pulled pint from a tap that you can’t recreate with a six pack from the corner shop.
We were pretty excited, then, when we got our hands on The Sub from Beerwulf, which promises draft quality pints from the comfort of your own home. The Sub is a slick bit of kit that doesn’t look out of place on your kitchen side, and with its 30cm footprint, it doesn’t take up too much space.
It’s pretty easy to get going, just insert a two litre keg (from a range of about 40 on the website), fiddle around with some piping and The Sub will begin chilling your beer. If you’ve kept your mini kegs in the fridge first, they’ll be ready to drink in an hour or two. If they’re at room temperature it’ll be a while longer as The Sub chills your kegs to perfect drinking temperature. Once the light goes green, you can pour your first pint and for a little while you can pretend you’re back in the bar.
We’ve seen a few people around the web complaining that The Sub produces too much foam, which is something we battled with initially. But if you follow the instructions i.e. clear the nozzle when you first start pouring and then open the tap fully when you’re pulling pints, it’s a pretty easy solve.
Now, there are a couple of downsides to The Sub. For starters, it’s certainly more expensive than buying your beer at the supermarket as it’ll set you back over £100 if you buy it with kegs.
It also takes quite a long time to chill and pressurise your mini kegs once you’ve placed them inside, which means you’re probably waiting a couple of hours between pints when you do a keg change. This basically rules out The Sub as a useful gadget for entertaining if you’re planning on drinking more than two litres. Finally, it’s a little noisy when you pull pints and it hums for about 20 seconds after you’ve finished pouring.
The Sub Review: The verdict
Even with the downsides, we loved using The Sub. Pouring a draft beer in your own house feels special after a year away from pubs and it’s something we’ll keep stocked even once lockdown ends as a weekend treat.
During lockdown, we’d happily buy one of these for ourselves if we were feeling flush at the end of the month. Outside of that, it makes an amazing gift for birthdays/special occasions.
- The Sub, £99.99 at Beerwulf – buy here
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