The Beer Thread

[Arthur Dent]

This beer thing, you are not brewing beer. Brewing beer is the same thing as cooking, like in the smoked meats thread. People have ideas, they learn from experience, they put their own twist on it. Someone using this, who looks up a recipe, puts the grain and hops in and hits a couple buttons is not "brewing" beer, (s)he is doing the same as, say, gassing up their car. They're just putting the stuff in that makes an otherwise automated system run. Brewing is part craft and part art, and removing one part isn't virtuous, or as good as the process that involves both.

If you have someone else dice your onions and peel your garlic, does that mean that you're not really cooking?

Yes, machines like this one will reduce the barrier to entry in brewing and simplify some of the trickier elements, but that's not exactly a bad thing. Using such a machine, you could just pour in pre-defined ingredients and press the button, or you can make your own recipes tweaking all the parameters. It looks like you can still control the grain bill, hop additions and times, water chemistry, mash temperature (much more accurately than the vast majority of home brewers!), boil time, yeast choice, adjuncts, fermentation temperature and related parameters, etc. And with the tighter process control, it will be much easier for brewers to develop skills tuning their brews precisely without the impact being swamped by random variations from the many manual process controls. There are some downsides like the lack of a decent wort chilling system, but presumably those can be corrected, and I imagine people will be custom hacking these things like crazy to extend the functionality.

let me guess, you still use a blacksmith?

Ha. Exactly.

[Arthur Dent]

What sort of restaurant would put one of these in their repertoire ... ?

I wouldn't think there would be much of a market selling this to restaurants, if nothing else because the capacity (2.5 gallons = 20 pints) is far too small. To the extent that there is a commercial market for it, I would think it would be as a means of quickly trying out new ideas -- prototype brews.

[lukethedrifter]

Yes, machines like this one will reduce the barrier to entry in brewing

I thought this thing was nearly 2 grand.

[Arthur Dent]

Yes, machines like this one will reduce the barrier to entry in brewing

I thought this thing was nearly 2 grand.

Well, yeah. Good point. And that's the main reason I won't be buying one any time soon. I assume the price will eventually come down.

[33anda3rd]

There's NO BARRIER to homebrewing. You can get a kit for just over a hundred bucks and be brewing your first extract batch that day. You can rig out an all-grain homebrew kit for under $500--probably under $200 if you ebay it and buy from someone who thought they'd like it and quit after two brews.

I know, I'm an elitist, but I'm not trying to be in this thread, I promise. Someone hand-grinding beans, measuring them out to the gram, then carefully hand-brewing the coffee in a Chemex or a V-60 is brewing coffee. Someone putting a pod in a Keurig and hitting a button is not. Someone weighing out grain, milling it, boiling it, and so on all the way through pitching the yeast and later bottling or kegging is brewing beer. Someone dumping a bag of grain into a machine and hitting some buttons is not.

When people talk 'craft' in reference to coffee, beer, spirits, cocktails, what they're talking about is 'art,' the decisions made and actions taken by the person making it. It's the same as in the bourbon thread when we were talking about craft distillers who make cuts by hand and craft their spirits by hand vs. the Templetons of the world who buy their distillate from LDI. There's a difference.

Also brewing beer is a lot of waiting around, but it's also a lot of work. Especially, at home, doing all the sanitizing. Commercially, in a small brewery, as someone whose been a part of several collaborative brews and worked the brew days and has also hung out a lot in breweries, it can be back-breaking, scooping spent grain out of the mash tun, hauling it out to a dumpster, lugging around hoses, sanitizing them over and over between steps. It's work, brewing beer, and it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to hit a button and go "hey, look, I brew beer too."

So, yeah, the guy who pays 10X what a beginners homebrew kit costs to get one of these things is not brewing beer like a guy with a home brew kit is. He's not doing the work--same as the Keurig guy is not 'brewing' coffee the way someone doing it by hand is. There's a difference. And that's not snobbery, just it's me pointing out that there's a difference, a big one. One is a convenience, one is an art/craft. If someone brought me a beer from one of these machines it might taste good, but that's probably because of the machine covering up any mistakes a beginning brewer would make. It would be ok because of the machine, not the guy.

[Jocephus]

id be more comfortable with calling it a science than art. art isn't a good term actually. like when pizza hut or doritos unveil "artisanal" variations with ease. just like "organic". these are buzz words to make you feel good.

also, cell phones used to look like this:

we all know what they look like now and what they are capable of doing.

i.e. time may change how these devices, the dreaded and immoral K cup, system(s) works.

[Freed Roger]

Also brewing beer is a lot of waiting around, but it's also a lot of work. Especially, at home, doing all the sanitizing. Commercially, in a small brewery, as someone whose been a part of several collaborative brews and worked the brew days and has also hung out a lot in breweries, it can be back-breaking, scooping spent grain out of the mash tun, hauling it out to a dumpster, lugging around hoses, sanitizing them over and over between steps. It's work, brewing beer, and it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to hit a button and go "hey, look, I brew beer too."

I didn't get the impression that the Pico thing is push button beer, but rather a way to build prototype brews while avoiding some of the heft that you mention.

Maybe the eventual goal is push button beer, but I don't think it will ever have a mainstream viability, like a Keurig. Craft beer drinkers have already bailed on easy or mass-produced beer, and won't be going back to it. Right now, the opposite is true -part of the appeal of craft beer is the dance to get it, visiting breweries etc. A place like New Glarus on hilltop in the country - we drink it because it tastes good, but also because of that sort of imagery...(God I hope that whole thing isn't a façade and they have a big ole Pico in the back room doing it.)

And although I am relatively new to enjoying "better coffee" and still developing a taste for it, I don't think the difference between bad coffee and good coffee is anywhere near what the difference is like in beer.

I'm sure someone has or will pass coffee beans thru an exotic monkey's digestive system to produce a better bean, but ultimately coffee is beans and hot water. Beer is much bigger & multi-factor process in every way.

[Jocephus]

I'm sure someone has or will pass coffee beans thru an exotic monkey's digestive system to produce a better bean, but ultimately coffee is beans and hot water. Beer is much bigger & multi-factor process in every way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

[Freed Roger]

I'm sure someone has or will pass coffee beans thru an exotic monkey's digestive system to produce a better bean, but ultimately coffee is beans and hot water. Beer is much bigger & multi-factor process in every way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

Ha, thanks - in the back of my head I think I'd heard of that, but wasn't sure if it was urban legend.

Reinheitsgepoop!

[jim]

I have not had a single home brew - and believe me I've had plenty with friends and family - that I didn't want to pour straight into the sink. I think the process of brewing must have the same effect as the process giving birth. "Oh look at my precious baby.". Sorry lady, that kid is fugly, and so is your home brew.