Water Dispenser "Cask"

First of all - Merry Christmas!

I brewed a small Brown Ale to be used as a starter for my big Imperial Stout. It was bottled Saturday night. As an experiment, I bottled part of it in a little one-gallon water dispenser. I thought of it as a self-introduction to kegging with only $5 of equipment needed - the dispenser. It would save bottling time by taking a relatively large volume of liquid into one vessel, and it would be a fun way to dispense the beer, enabling me to take just a few ounces if I want. Plus it would be sort of like cask-conditioned - fed by gravity with no CO2 needed at all

The dispenser looks something like the one above - except that one in the picture is two gallons, and mine is more like one gallon.

One of my main concerns about this is whether or not this vessel is capable of holding the pressure that will be in there with the carbonation and all, but I'll never know if I don't try. OK, I just realized I should post photos of the actual thing I have: first, in my temperature controlled fermenting/conditioning fridge, then from the front, and then from the side.

So with this recently bottled batch of Little Bear's Brown Beer, my "barometer" PET plastic bottle is getting firm, and this rubbermaid dispenser is bulging out quite a bit, so I could no longer resist taking a little sample. After all, sampling a small amount is so easy with this dispenser! That's part of the benefit I hope to gain.

Imagine my delight as the beer came out with a bubbly blast from the dispenser! It was pushed out with the fury of a driving snowfall! Wow! Cool!! I am always pleased with the marked improvement in taste that CO2 bubbles give beer. And this proves that the concept works so far. I will keep drawing samples each day, and when it seems right, I'll move it over to the cold fridge to stabilize it. Maybe I'll use it as a serving device on poker night next week. If it lasts that long.