- Title: HUNGARY-BREWIE App-controlled home brewing machine launched in Hungary
- Date: 28th May 2015
- Summary: PHONE SCREEN SHOWING BREWIE OPTIONS MARCEL LOOKING AT COMPUTER SCREEN WITH BREWIE TEAM MEMBER COMPUTER SCREEN SHOWING BREWIE CAMPAIGN FILM
- Embargoed: 12th June 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Hungary
- Country: Hungary
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA44RVK7RBSMHLOWT01UUMXMNAD
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The idea of the Brewie, an app-controlled beer brewing machine, came when a group of Hungarian and Dutch beer lovers began looking for a cheap and easy way to make beer at home.
The end result is a crowd-funded project that is gaining fans around the world due to the ease of brewing quality beer without the need of sitting through the whole process.
"The biggest problem with brewing is that it takes a lot of time, so we wanted to avoid that therefore we came up with a system where after we put in the ingredients in the machine you don't have to be around the machine. You can follow the whole process via internet, from your PC, tablet or smart phone and you can not only monitor it but you can even control it," co-founder of Brewie, Pal Marcel said.
Marcel and his friend Andrew Winter set out to develop their machine in 2013 and within a year they launched a crowd-funding campaign for Brewie. At the time there was only one similar product in the market but that the solutions used in the system weren't good enough for the Brewie team.
Without revealing details of their brewing process, Marcel said their system is more durable than others currently on the market.
"This is the only machine that includes all the steps of brewing and the other thing is that this is probably the longest-living machine among the others because of the valve and pump system," Marcel said.
Brewie inventors were stunned by the success of their crowd-funding campaign, after they reached their goal of 100,000 USD in 9 days. The campaign was launched at a party and by the time the two-minute promotional video was over, more than 10,000 USD was in their account.
The Brewie comes with a RFID [radio-frequency identification] card that contains all the information about the brew and needs to be swiped to begin the process. Users can also modify the recipe and create their own, adding up to six different hops at different stages in the brewing process, to make a wide array of beers.
The entire brewing process is fully automated with a menu of 200 pre-set brewing processes for specific beers. Brewie controls the timing, temperature, and everything else. After 5-6 hours of cooking and 5-14 days of fermenting the home beer is ready. And the price of one pint like this is only around 0.30 USD basing on the cost of ingredients.
"What we did here, we actually gave the opportunity to do it yourself, your own beer, to have craft beer which is very high quality and people really like it on a very reasonable price, in a very compact and nice design at home. And I think these are the reasons why this is so popular," Marcel said.
Dutch craft beer brewer Roderick Goosens said the Brewie beer tasted just as good as other craft beers.
"When I tasted it I couldn't tell it apart," Goosens said.
"Smooth, well-balanced beer that has a nice bite on the back of the tongue and I think you can drink it like all day long," he added.
Brewie is currently coming into production and will have the first five test units in a few weeks time. 150 orders were placed during the crowd-funding campaign and since then more than 1,100 people signed up for units from all over the world, including the US, Argentina, Indonesia, and Europe. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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