The keg line stretches up the basement stairs.

Beer pong players glare over their empty plastic cups and a game of flip-cup stalls, waiting for refills.

The Table Tapper may be a solution to this party nightmare.

The Table Tapper, designed by Alberti Enterprises Inc., is a new device for beer consumption. A three-foot high, 116-ounce beer-filled tube, allows pong and flip-cup to continue uninterrupted.

Pong players and partygoers can fill up the tube instead of the popular plastic cup.

"The whole purpose of the Table Tapper is to replace the standard pitcher for a table or group of people at a bar, but it can also be used at keg parties," Tony Alberti, Alberti Enterprises president, said. "[Customers] would order the Table Tapper, fill it up at the bar, then it comes back to the table, and everyone can pour their own drinks."

Alberti said the Table Tapper holds about two pitchers' worth of liquid.

"The tube and the base are separate from each other, and [waitresses] can fill it one time, and it will sit there," he said. "It is like stacking pitchers on top of each other, and it doesn't take as much space on the table."

Alberti added that customers use the Table Tapper at tailgates for mixed drinks or to dispense shots. He is also hoping to use professional and college team logos to decorate them.

Mary Martin (junior-hotel and restaurant management), a bartender for Penn State Hospitality Services, said the Table Tappers work well.

"It works in the same way as a pitcher by allowing you to get a larger quantity of beer at the table at one time rather than having to go back to the bar," she said. "It also has a more appealing look, and it's more fun than pouring your beer out of a pitcher and keeps your beer cold."

Martin said the product could make underage drinking a problem because beer could be shared more easily.

She said Penn State Hospitality Services does not use the Table Tappers in the banquet settings because large amounts of alcohol are not consumed.

Martin became familiar with the Table Tapper at California University of Pennsylvania but said she has not seen one in State College. "It sounds pretty inventive -- waiting in line for the keg always holds up the game -- but I don't think I'd go out of my way to buy some expensive beer gimmick," Erin O'Donnell (senior-accounting) said. "I'd just run to a neighbor's house and borrow another pitcher."

She said college kids are too cheap to buy into the Table Tapper.

State College beer distributors are unwilling to comment and are unfamiliar with the Table Tapper.

State College bars do not carry the Table Tapper.

The Table Tapper is available online at www.tabletappers.com. and costs $99.