Czech brothers build a cordless beer tap that lasts 20 hours

A Czech family team led by twin brothers Robert and Matyáš Tongel has developed Durvag, a portable beer-dispensing device that chills and pours a drink from an ordinary keg almost anywhere — by a river, at a campsite, or in the middle of the desert — running for up to 20 hours on a single battery charge.

The idea grew out of a simple problem faced by keen anglers: how to keep beer cold out in nature in summer without access to a fridge. “We love fishing, and we love beer. And we kept running into the same problem over and over,” Robert Tongel tells CzechCrunch. His brother Matyáš built the first prototype literally out of whatever was lying around, and later their father, Robert senior, and friends Roman Nguyen and Kryštof Pobříslo joined the project.

The device looks like a large coffee machine or a computer tower: it can be plugged into the mains or run independently on a battery, and the unit itself connects to a standard beer keg. The project has already caught the interest of the University of West Bohemia, which will help the team bring the final product up to professional testing and engineering standards.

The founders have already spent around CZK 400,000 of their own money developing the prototype. Durvag is now raising funds on Kickstarter, where the campaign has pulled in roughly CZK 800,000 within just a few days. The first batch is planned at a thousand units — the team says there are currently no direct competitors in Europe among portable chargeable devices for dispensing from full-size kegs.

Crowdfunding alone won’t be enough to launch mass production — after a successful campaign, the founders plan to approach investors. By their estimate, finalising the design, sourcing components and optimising production will require several million crowns. For anyone ready to pre-order now, the device will cost around CZK 19,000 — the team hopes to hold that price despite inevitable production costs.