HOP ’TIL YOU DROP Raising the bar

THE MISSION

Can we produce better, faster and cheaper craft beer using the best new homebrew gadgets, or through time-honoured traditional methods? Andy’s the brewer behind Bristol’s best-kept homebrew secret: The Urban Grinch, an English brown ale. Julia just likes beer.

MAN vs TECH

Let’s face it. Brewing a perfectly crafted beer from your own home isn’t as easy as it looks. Nailing the mash. Calculating volumes. Getting your head around grains, hops, yeasts and how they work together. It’s an intimidating science – and that’s before you even get into the business of water profiling or fermentation temperatures.

But when you get it right, pouring a pint of delicious homebrew from a keg in your kitchen is unbeatable. So when challenged us to test a machine that promised to craft perfect beer – without the complex equipment, techniques and clean-up – we were quite curious. Could a countertop gadget really create a