Did you ever think the day would come when you would be monitoring and controlling your next batch of homebrew on your smartphone? If a Kickstarter company, Cargo, from Belfast, United Kingdom (of course) get their way that is exactly what you’ll be doing with their Brewbot apparatus! Brewbot is a small (relatively speaking) brewing appliance that you monitor with your smartphone. You do not need to know anything about brewing as it guides you through the process from beginning to end. Their caption at Kickstarters is:
Smart technology meets brewing. Now anyone can brew high quality craft beers using their smartphone.
So far, they have 122 backers and have collected approximately $62,000 of the $154,000 they need for their Kickstarter project. But a couple more pledges came in during the time I wrote this article and they still have 26 days to go…and I believe they will make their goal. If more drinkers would sober up and contribute, we could see their numbers rise immensely!
Their goal is to bring brewing beer down to an easy to follow process so that anybody that has a desire to try their hand at brewing can do so. Recipes are stored on an app on your smartphone (iPhone only, but Android soon to follow) but you can tweak ingredients and add different flavorings to make it your own. The entire apparatus is about the size of a wardrobe closet, to as they say, “Our aim is to bring brewing out of the garage and into the home.” This size brewery is large enough to brew approximately five gallons of beer, at the cost of about $.42 per 12-ounce glass.
They have moved their team to Portland, Oregon, “the micro-brewery capital of America,” to source out fabricators, materials and components to help make Brewbot a reality, while on the software side, they continue to refine the user interface and add more options. They claim the process is very simple:
- Buy ingredients from a local shop or online
- Select your recipe from your smartphone and connect it to Brewbot via Bluetooth and updates or instructions will be sent to your phone
- Tap “Start Brew” and Brewbot takes over, delivering the right amount of ingredients at the proper temperature
At the start, they are focusing their efforts in the UK, Ireland, and the U.S. If you invest through Kickstarters, the Brewbot will cost you approximately $2,300 and $230-$250 for shipping, and can be customized (for additional) money to match your d©cor. Let’s raise a cold one to the men at Cargo!