Thread moved to Food Forum.
Edit: While this
thread does not answer your question specifically, it will contain some leads to what you're looking for. Hope that helps.
Edit 2:
Taken from the R & B Breweries website:
Quote:
What’s the difference between a hand pump and a draft dispense unit?
With the hand pump, you manually pump air into the keg, creating pressure which enables the delicious beer to pour smoothly out of the spout. It’s major advantages over the CO2 dispense unit are its portability and ease of connection (just twist, pump, drink!) With the hand pump unit, however, you will need to keep the keg cold in order to ensure that the beer will stay cold, and the longevity of the keg is compromised once it is tapped (you’re fine for about twelve hours, but once the beer has become exposed to oxygen its shelf life is dramatically decreased. But hey, are you really gonna beer left over in twelve hours?)
With the CO2 draft dispense unit, CO2 is forced into the keg, creating the pressure needed to pour the beer. The draft dispense unit is comprised of two parts: the CO2 cylinder, used to ‘push’ the beer, and the dispense unit, usually a standard camping cooler with an aluminum cooling plate on the inside and pub-style pouring spouts on the outside. The advantages to the draft dispense unit are numerous. Rather than keeping the entire keg cold, only the cooling plate on the inside of the cooler needs to be kept cold. As the beer contacts the cooling plate, it will be cooled down to the perfect temperature! Also, because CO2 is sterile, it will not affect the longevity of the beer, so your keg will last much longer using this system (maybe for a week up at the cabin? Hmm? We’re open to invites…). Another advantage is the simple fact that you don’t have to pump anything to drink the beer – just pull the tap and you’re gold!
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As for the price difference and whether it is worth it or not, I cannot specifically answer that for you as I've only ever rented the hand pump. Try giving Rick or Barry a call @ R & B Breweries to get a better idea. They're super nice guys.