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many advanced homebrewers use the 5 gallon soda cans to keg beer. They are called "cornelius kegs". I use to have 3 or 4 different styles in the Conelius egs all hooked up in a row to the CO2 bottle through a manifold. You can also use the kegs and CO2 bottle to force carbonate the beer. thus , after the fermentation , you don't need to add priming sugar and wait a week or so. just attach a CO2 bottle and shake the beer in the keg and in just a short time you will have a carbonated product. many a time I force carbonated then put it in bottles for beer contests. lots of time that forced carbonation saved my butt when I was running late for a contest and there was no time left for natural carbonating the beer.
Big issue with using soda kegs is you need to rense and clean them a lot to get out any traces of soda. You will lose 5 gallons of beer instantly if there is any soda taste or smell left in the keg. I had special fitting hooked up to the soda keg quick disconnects and I would flush them with hot water , open and scrob , flush again , add bleach water , flush again and a final rinse with water plus iodophor before kegging. Once you get the kegs cleaned for beer the first time , reuseing them for subsequent batches was much easier. I once lost 5 gallons to a sick lemon or lime taste that somehow survived the wash and flush routine. just the slightest hint of that sugary lime taste makes the beer very undersireable.
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