Jason Pratt remembers a sip of beer he had ten years ago. It’s one of his most formative beer memories, and it took place during what he calls “a pilgrimage” to Santa Rosa, California, to the Russian River Brewing Company, for a taste rare by Pliny the Younger. This highly coveted, intensely lemony triple IPA is only sold at the brewery, once a year only. Today, Pratt is president of the Cicerone program, which trains and certifies beer professionals. He’s put down more than a few pints in his career, but this first cool sip of Pliny the Younger on tap remains undefeated.

“You create memorable experiences with draft beer most of the time, in different ways. There’s a camaraderie that comes with it,” Pratt says. “It’s part of being away from home, because it’s something people can’t recreate.”

This draft beer experience, however, is in jeopardy. Last year, only 9% of beer sold in the United States was packaged in kegs. The rest was sipped from bottles or cans, the de facto mode of beer consumption in the United States.

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The decline of draft beer is a decades-long story, although the temporary closure of bars and restaurants due to COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of those losses. Nationally, data firm Draftline Technologies estimates that between 7 and 13 percent of all tap lines are empty, set up and ready, but not dispensing any beer. If the trend continues, draft beer could become a novelty, or even a relic.

As one of only 28 people in the world to achieve the rank of Master Cicerone, the highest title offered by the program, Pratt enjoys draft beer as a multi-sensory experience. Just like varying wine glasses, different beer glassware can trap and enhance beer flavors. The particular gas used to force the beer out of the keg (along with nitrogen or carbon dioxide) can create a silkier or crisper texture. And the way the bartender pours the beer, via a standard tap or the increasingly trendy side, can change the density and creaminess of its foam.

All of which can radically improve the experience of drinking that beer, not to mention the visual appeal of a nicely colored, correctly poured pint. (Or the kitsch pleasure of glitter beer.) For aficionados, “there’s the theater of pouring that can help draw people in,” Pratt says.

It’s also an important part of American drinking culture: more than a century ago, when the United States was on the brink of Prohibition, Americans were primarily familiar with draft beer. Bottles were expensive and heavy, and domestic refrigerators did not exist functionally. Almost all beer was served in bars, taverns and saloons in wooden barrels surrounded by iron hoops. Our modern draft beer systems of steel barrels and forced carbon dioxide would come later, but by the turn of the 20th century the United States was decidedly a draft beer culture.