Disassembling Guinness Keg

So disassembling a Guinness keg is not the most common thing to do in the universe, but I had to do it this weekend. Guinness kegs use a different tap style than the standard European taps. It can be a bit daunting at first, but the steps are:

1. Lay the keg on its side, take a screwdriver and press the valve stem center to release any leftover pressure in the keg.
2. Drill holes where you can use a countersink punch and a hammer to smack the crap out of the retention ring, smacking the ring in the counterclockwise direction. (This may not strictly be necessary, but I needed the punch to get some good hits in.)
3. As you are smacking the ring, you should start seeing it move slightly. In my case, the ring moved a few millimeters at a time, before loosening completely.
4. Once the retention ring is out, I used the pliers to grab the valve stem in the center, and pulled the whole valve upwards.
5. The whole valve assembly will get caught, you have to rotate it while pulling, until the metal nub in the valve assembly lines up with the notch in the neck of the keg. Once aligned, the whole valve assembly will slide right out.

Here’s what it looks like:

Nevermind the wire I ran through the holes I drilled (you don’t have to drill them all the way through, either). I was trying to run a stick through the wire and then unscrew the retention ring that way (kind of like a tourniquet). But it didn’t work, so I reverted to smacking it with a hammer some more, which did work.