Root beer kegs comes in many different sizes. There are actually 2 standards for how kegs are measure. The most common in America is called the BBL (“barrel”), but you can also find the European style kegs measured in liter.
1 BBL = 31 gallons. If you think that’s confusing and seems arbitrary, you’re right! And you can’t actually buy a 31 gallon keg. The BBL is actually a measurement used for breweries when making much larger batches, because their tanks are measure by the BBL. Microbreweries most commonly use tanks in the 5 BBL to 100 BBL range! The measurements for commonly available kegs are fractions of that: 1/2 BBL (15.5 gallons), 1/4 BBL (7.75 gallons) and 1/6 BBL (5.16 gallons). European kegs are generally either 55 liters, 30 liters, or 20 liters.
This list compares how many common 12 oz cans or bottles are in each root beer keg size:
- 5 gallon keg – 53 x 12 oz servings
- 7.75 gallon keg – 82 x 12 oz servings
- 15.5 gallon keg – 165 x 12 oz servings
- 20 liter keg – 56 x 12 oz servings
- 30 liter keg – 83 x 12 oz servings
- 55 liter keg – 155 x 12 oz servings