![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dougdoug.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/micromatic_faucet.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhile I had never heard of the brands Ads2, they sell a faucet that looks nearly identical to the Micromatic just with a more golden color:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nuktap has a black faucet that looks like a standard co2 tap but you can screw on a nitro spout with the restrictor disc:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perlick shows a gold nitro faucet on their website with a gold colored spout:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nukatap option is the cheapest of the bunch. With the faucet and the nitro spout available for around $50. However, I much prefer the tall, narrow profile of the other nitro faucets over the more standard look (for a non-nitro faucet) of the Nukatap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Micro Matic and the Ads2 faucets are available for $150 – $200. These look nicer than the Nukatap but at this price I don’t like the plastic spout. Micro Matic also warns that their faucet should not be pulled more than 45 degrees or there is a risk of damage to the internal diaphragm. This might be true of all nitro faucets. But Micro Matic is the only vendor that warns about it. This felt like a poor user interface to me. If you shouldn’t pull the faucet beyond a certain point then it should stop at that point. I don’t want to keep a protractor next to my kegerator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Perlick faucet looked like the best of the bunch. It fit my black and gold aesthetic requirements, it has the tall and narrow profile, and it has a metal spout. But it also costs $306. For a faucet. I didn’t like the idea of spending this much money on just one part of the kegerator. But it checked all my boxes. And I know from experience that Perlick makes very high quality non-nitro faucets. So I decided to go for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe I’m just a part of the Amazon generation. But in my opinion, buying a kegerator faucet in the 2020s should be as simple as adding it to your cart and then providing a shipping address and credit card details. Right? Wrong. Perlick does not sell their nitro faucet directly to consumers. So I had to find a vendor. Some vendors would not ship to my address. Others charged exorbitant shipping costs. But I found a vendor that would sell me the faucet and charge me what I considered to be a reasonable fee for shipping. I placed the order and eagerly anticipated receiving a shipping notification. Instead, I got an email saying that there was a 6-10 week lead time on the faucet. That seemed odd, but I wanted to start enjoying Guinness in less than six weeks so I cancelled the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found the faucet available from a different vendor and placed another order. This time I was told that there was a 4-6 week lead time. And that this was just the standard for ordering Perlick parts. This was confusing. I expected that to fulfill this order someone would have to pull a faucet off a shelf, put it in a box and ship it. But maybe each faucet is bespoke? That would certainly explain the cost. I was also told that if I went ahead with the order that I could not return it. I decided to go through with it. I purchased a cheaper faucet so that I could enjoy Guinness while I waited for my unicorn of faucets to arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I waited. And I waited some more. It took 12 weeks from when I ordered for me to receive the faucet. I opened the box and the first thing I noticed was a silver colored spout. This was frustrating. But at least I had a Perlick faucet. Worst case, I could buy a different spout or paint this one gold. Then I turned it over and saw the brand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was a Tap Rite faucet. I paid $300 and waited 12 weeks for a faucet that I could have gotten for around $100 and no wait. This must have been a mistake, right? I emailed the vendor. Then I did some research. The trick was to amend my Google search for websites that included mentions of both Perlick and Tap Rite. I found other complaints of people ordering a Perlick nitro faucet and receiving a Tap Rite. While I had seen some of these before I placed the order, I had assumed that the error was on the part of the seller. Who hasn’t ordered something from Amazon or eBay only to receive an item that failed to meet expectations, right? But no. In this case, it is Perlick that is failing to meet expectations. Apparently Perlick sources these faucets from Tap Rite, adds a huge premium and then sells these through their vendors as Perlick faucets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t necessarily have a problem with receiving a Tap Rite when I ordered a Perlick. It’s frustrating, and a waste of time and money. But if these faucets are good enough for Perlick to sell as their own then they should be good enough for me. I do have a problem with the silver colored spout. The product image that Perlick provides shows a gold colored spout. But, as best as I can tell, Perlick is advertising a product that does not exist<\/em>. I spent the extra money for the metallic gold spout and the Perlick name and I got neither.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I never heard back from the vendor. While I’m annoyed, I don’t think they did anything wrong outside of being slow to respond to emails. Ultimately, they advertise the faucet using the image that Perlick gives them. When someone buys it they contract with Perlick for the part and then ship it. Until someone complains, they have no way of knowing that the faucet is a Tap Rite faucet with a silver spout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also reached out to Perlick. They told me that, “This is currently being looked into with your dealer\/distributor.” I responded once asking for an update. I never heard back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I appreciate that this is the definition of first world problems. But when I was researching faucets, it was hard to find any information on the Perlick stout faucet. With hindsight, I now know this is because Perlick does not produce a stout faucet. But, I hope that by putting these details out there I may be able to save someone in the future from speding $300 on a Perlick stout faucet. Just buy the Tap Rite and save yourself $200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, I decided to purchase the Ads2 faucet to satisfy my black and gold requirements. Since neither my vendor nor Perlick want to refund me, I now owned three different nitro faucets: the cheaper one that I purchased as an interim solution, the Perlick that was actually a Tap Rite, and the Ads2. The bad news is that I spent more money on faucets than some people do for their entire kegerator. The good news is that I’m well positioned to look into whether you can get a better Guinness by using a different faucet. I bought a fourth faucet, the Nuka Tap and I will be testing that as well. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I decided to build a Guinness kegerator, I settled on a black and gold theme to match the colors of the Guinness logo. I…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dougdoug.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ads2_faucet.png\")
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