Table Tap’s Beverage Amenity: Forecasting Resident Usage and Popular Beverages on Tap

When Table Tap was born almost 20 years ago, we believed at that time the vast majority of our installations would be systems that dispense beer at bars, restaurants, and taprooms. We had no clue how much demand there would be for our system in the multifamily industry, and nobody at that time realized how popular other beverages (like seltzers, wine, cold brew, and kombucha) would become on tap. 

Within the past few years, Table Tap has become unbelievably popular in the multifamily industry with close to 150 systems at apartment communities across the country. Our beverage amenity has become a standard that many of the country’s largest developers are implementing to attract and retain residents. Over 50% of systems we’re installing for apartments have at least one non-alcoholic tap or wine tap. 

Two of the most common questions we receive from interested apartment projects are “what types of beverages should we offer?” and “how many kegs should we expect to go through each month?”. The answer to the first question certainly impacts the answer to the second question, but the number of kegs an apartment goes through is impacted by many factors: number of taps, types of beverages on tap, quality of brands on tap, apartment demographics, apartment location, number of units/residents, the location of the Table Tap system, daily dispense limit per resident, and tap schedule/availability.

With all these different factors, there’s no perfect formula or method to predict exactly how many kegs an apartment will go through. It’s important for an apartment to have an idea of their expected keg usage. Their operational expenses for the amenity will essentially be how much they spend on kegs each month. In this blog post, we’ll be sharing data from several of our apartment customers to give insight on how certain factors affect the number of kegs an apartment might go through and what beverages might be most popular. 

Table Tap Technology’s Impact on Resident Usage

The Offset is a 368-unit apartment complex in Sacramento, California. They have a 4-tap system installed for two beers and two ciders. The Offset goes through just over 17 kegs/month which is on the high end of the spectrum compared to our other apartment customers. However, each resident at The Offset has a daily pour limit of 32 ounces, which is the highest it can legally be.

As the data proves, residents absolutely love the amenity, and they use it often. It adds value to the resident experience and undoubtedly differentiates The Offset from other communities in the area. In fact, our amenity helped The Offset be selected as a finalist for Best Garden Community 2023 by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The Offset spends more than most apartments do on kegs each month, but they have no problem with it as they realize the marketing value the Table Tap system provides in attracting and retaining residents. 

If The Offset (our first data set) wanted to, they could lower their keg costs by reducing their daily limit from 32 ounces. Many of our apartments have limits lower than 32 ounces to help keep their kegs costs down. Palomino is a 482-unit apartment complex in Reno, Nevada. They also have a 4-tap system but with two beers and two wines. The daily limit for each resident is 16 ounces of beer or 5 ounces of wine. Wine has a higher alcohol content than beer and wine kegs are more expensive than beer kegs. Because of those reasons, many customers want to put tighter controls on their wine pours. To do that, we can configure a dispense multiplier on wine. If that multiplier is 3.2-to-1, then residents can pour less than half as much wine as they can beer. That’s why residents at Palomino can pour 16 ounces of beer or only 5 ounces of wine. 

Even though Palomino has more units than The Offset, they are going through half the number of kegs because they have implemented a lower daily limit per resident. Configuring a dispense multiplier on the wine taps has also proved to be effective as they are going through wine kegs at approximately half the rate they go through beer kegs. 

Another feature that can be utilized on any Table Tap system is a Tap Schedule. A property can schedule the hours of the day and days of the week that the taps are available to residents. Momentum is a 376-unit high-rise community in Atlanta, Georgia with two taps for beer and two taps for wine. Their daily limit is 16 ounces of beer or 8 ounces of wine per resident (a 2-to-1 dispense multiplier). At Palomino and The Offset, the taps are available 24/7. At momentum, the taps are only available from 5pm-10pm each day. Momentum is only going through about three kegs each month, significantly less than the other two properties.

The controls that can be configured on a Table Tap system are needed for any multifamily community wanting to efficiently offer beverages on tap. It gives apartments the ability to minimize, if they choose to do so, how often residents use the system and allows them to shape their keg expenses as they see fit. Not to mention extensively in this article, but Table Tap’s controls are also absolutely necessary when offering alcoholic beverages to reduce an apartment’s liability.

Alcoholic Beverages vs. Non-Alcoholic Beverages

A common misconception around Table Tap’s amenity is that the value it carries as a marketing tool and differentiator only applies if alcoholic beverages are on tap. As previously mentioned, non-alcoholic beverages on tap are becoming increasingly common, especially in multifamily communities. Many times, the non-alcoholic beverages are just as popular or even more popular than the alcoholic beverages.

LynnCora is a 278-unit community in Grand Prairie, Texas. They have a 5-tap system with two beers, two wines, and one cold brew coffee tap. Cold brew represents 20% of their offering and residents can choose to pour 16 ounces of beer, wine, or cold brew a day. Those that argue non-alcoholic beverages are significantly lesser of an offering would probably predict that residents pour way more beer and wine than they do cold brew. LynnCora goes through about 5 kegs a month total, and about one keg of cold brew a month. 20% of their system is for cold brew and 20% of resident usage is from the cold brew tap so residents are valuing cold brew equal to the alcoholic beverages. 

At Graphite Oakley, a 316-unit apartment complex in Cincinnati, Ohio, residents have access to one beer tap and one cold brew tap. They are going through 8 kegs a month, with 5 of those being cold brew kegs and 3 being beer kegs. This is a clear cut example of a non-alcoholic beverage being more popular than an alcoholic beverage. Graphite Oakley’s Tap Schedule is set so both taps are available each day from 6am-10am and then again from 5pm-8pm. One reason why cold brew is in such demand is because it’s a beverage that can be enjoyed in the morning, afternoon, and even at night. Beer and wine however, are typically only poured in the evenings (for good reason). 

A more drastic example of cold brew’s popularity compared to beer is at The Sterling at Oak Hills, a 330-unit community in San Antonio, Texas. This property has two taps for beer and two taps for cold brew. They are going through an average of 8 kegs a month with 6.7 of those being cold brew. However, we must point out that the demographics of this apartment community skew these numbers. The Sterling at Oak Hills is located right next to a hospital and a large percentage of residents are nurses. Knowing your demographics is key in choosing the right beverages on tap for your residents. Female residents typically prefer cold brew and wine over beer.

One last comparison between alcoholic beverages and non-alcoholic beverages is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Broadstone Craft is a 297-unit community and Solis LoSo is a 310-unit community. These communities are 15 minutes apart and both opened last year. Broadstone craft has two taps total for cold brew coffee and kombucha while Solis LoSo has two taps total for beer. Broadstone Craft’s daily limit is 12 ounces while Solis LoSo’s daily limit is slightly higher at 16 ounces. Broadstone Craft is going through nearly 6 kegs a month while Solis LoSo is only going through 3 kegs a month. In the same city, one that has a plethora of craft breweries, non-alcoholic beverages are twice as popular as beer. 

The proof is in the numbers that offering non-alcoholic beverages on tap creates an extremely valuable marketing tool for an apartment community. There is a great argument to be made that non-alcoholic beverages are an even better amenity offering than alcoholic beverages. Every apartment should be offering a non-alcoholic beverage on tap, but that brings up another misconception and question we get all the time: “If my apartment will only have non-alcoholic beverages on tap, then why do I need Table Tap’s monitor and control technology? We aren’t worried about any liability because residents can’t get drunk off cold brew and kombucha”. That may be true, but what many people don’t realize is that kegs of non-alcoholic beverages are about twice as expensive as kegs of beer. 

The average ⅙ barrel keg of cold brew costs $150-$200 while the average ⅙ barrel keg of beer costs $70-$100. Riverside Apartments is a 200-unit community in Greenville, South Carolina. Before coming to Table Tap, they had a single cold brew tap installed in their common area. They had no controls in place on the kegerator so it was available to residents unlimited 24/7. This allowed residents to abuse the amenity at the expense of property management. Many residents were pouring 3-4 16oz glasses a day. Others were filling up gallon jugs and stocking their apartment refrigerator. This led to property management spending over $2,000 a month on cold brew kegs. It was getting way too costly but residents loved the cold brew so much that property management couldn’t just abandon the amenity.

They needed a way to control usage so they came to Table Tap. We retrofitted the kegerator with our monitor and control technology so that now each resident can only pour 12 ounces a day. With our system in place, the community is now going through less than 5 kegs a month and they’re spending less than $1,000 a month on cold brew. They didn’t have to completely remove the cold brew tap and they can still offer complimentary cold brew and have a great amenity to market, but our system is now saving them over $12,000 a year. Even when only non-alcoholic beverages are on tap, Table Tap’s system is greatly needed to help properties minimize their keg costs and operational expenses. 

Based on this data and examples, it is clear that Table Tap’s monitor and control technology is critical for any apartment community wanting to offer beverages on tap. Contrary to popular belief, non-alcoholic beverages are just as an attractive amenity to residents as alcoholic beverages. So attractive, that without Table Tap’s technology, resident usage would be too high and keg costs would be too expensive to maintain. Whether you want to offer beer, wine, cold brew coffee, kombucha, or any other type of beverage on tap, Table Tap and the features of our system will be here to help your community controls costs and offer these beverages effectively. Reach out to us today to get your property pouring!