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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

MiniBrew

After a Summer Hit by COVID-19, Home Brew Appliance Startup MiniBrew Secures Funding for 2021

MiniBrew, a Netherlands-based maker of home-brew appliances, announced last month they’ve secured funding to continue operations after a months-long struggle with COVID-19-related difficulties.

The company, which started shipping its home brew appliance last year in Europe, had big plans for expansion into the U.S. and other markets, but saw a number of strategic investors pull out in the midst of the pandemic.

The loss of investment back in June meant the company went into “suspension of payment” (meaning they couldn’t pay their creditors) and laid off members of the team. The resulting reduction in personnel and funding also meant MiniBrew had to put a halt on development of a 110-volt model of its machine for the U.S. market.

Despite the struggles due to COVID-related funding issues, the pullback came amidst an increase of usage of the appliances in the field as home brewers stuck indoors fired up their units to make beer. According to the company’s update, homebound MiniBrew users created three times more beer recipes compared to pre-COVID times.

Luckily for those MiniBrew users, the company announced they’ve reach an agreement with their creditors, secured funding and are once again adding new features for the MiniBrew such as recipe sharing.

MiniBrew’s struggles and small dedicated user base are reminiscent of PicoBrew’s here in the States, although unlike PicoBrew, the MiniBrew team was able to negotiate with its lenders to live another day.

Overall, home beer making automation remains a struggling category. In addition to PicoBrew and MiniBrew, we’ve watched startups like iGulu and HOPii struggle after big crowdfunding campaigns, while others, like LG’s much-hyped HomeBrew appliance, looks like it never got out the door.

Despite the category’s struggles, there are still companies like BEERMKR, INTHEKEG and Pinter rolling out products and an early and enthusiastic of early adopters buying them.

The challenge will be whether the category can ever break out beyond the small group of early adopters who are craving a tech-forward home brew solution.

Hop On: There’s a Sudsy New Wave of Homebrew Appliances Looking To Automate Beer Brewing

How many people will make beer at home if you give them an machine to help in the process?

The next few years should provide an answer to that question as a new wave of beer-brewing appliances hit the market.

Home beer brewing machines aren’t new. PicoBrew started shipping the Zymatic a few years back and followed that product with the consumer-focused Pico. Brewie started shipping its second generation, the Brewie+, last year. Australian extract-beer giant Coopers got into the game in 2017 with BrewArt (though technically some wouldn’t call extract-derived beer “brewing”), and we’re not even counting those like HOPii that have already come and gone.

Despite all this activity, it seems the homebrew market has only just started to pick up speed. With that in mind, here’s a quick look at the new entrants to home brewing appliances coming to the U.S. in the next year:

BEERMKR

Set to ship this summer, BEERMKR’s open platform and proven ability to deliver products make this startup one of the more promising new entrants to the home brew appliance space.

Here’s what I wrote in March after I saw the BEERMKR in action at the Housewares show:

The system, which comes with a brewing appliance and a beer dispenser, sells for a post-Kickstarter price of $399 for the complete system. MKR KITs, the optional ingredient packs for those that want to “brew-by-number”, will each cost $12 and deliver a gallon or so of beer.

At $399, BEERMKR is one of the most affordable new entrants to the market. The company will sell MKR KITS that include all the ingredients for a batch of beer for $12, though you can also use your own grains and hops.

You can watch founder Aaron Walls walk me through the product below:

A look at the Beermkr beer brewing appliance

LG HomeBrew

We were as surprised as anyone when LG announced their intent to enter the home-brewing appliance space in advance of this year’s CES. The new appliance, aptly called LG HomeBrew, sees the South Korean appliance giant taking a Keurig-style approach to home brewing with an all-in-one capsule-based system that automates the entire process, including dispensing.

If anything, a big consumer electronics brand like LG entering the home-brew-appliance space helps legitimize it, even if LG runs into challenges finding a market for their product. Of course, much of the product’s ultimate success will depend on pricing and on how well it actually works, but I worry that by creating a fully-capsule based system the company might be going against the trend towards more open brewing systems. After all, consumers who go through the trouble of making beer at home have shown they want some room for creativity, one of big the reasons PicoBrew finally opened their platform to enable ‘bring-your-own-ingredients’.

MiniBrew

MiniBrew, the brain child of two Dutch advertising executives, is different from all the other appliances on this list for one reason: it’s already shipping.

The product, for which the company raised €2.6M in funding in December, started shipping throughout Europe in the fall of last year and the company is targeting a 2020 entry into the U.S. market.

Cofounder Olivier van Oord gave me a walk-through of the MiniBrew when I was in Europe last month, and I have to say I liked what I saw. The system is both open enough to allow the brewer to craft their own recipes while also also applying enough automation to make the brewing process (and serving) much easier and approachable.

One aspect I liked was an app that allows the user to craft recipes easily around their own beer preferences. From there, they can order ingredients based on their own recipe or choose an ingredient pack based on a beer from one of MiniBrew’s partners. Once the wort is created, the user tosses the yeast into the brew keg and tells it to start the fermentation process with the app.

Keeping the the wort and what becomes the fully fermented beer contained in one keg that also serves as the (fully refrigerated) dispensing keg is something van Oord saw as critical, in part because it eliminates room for error:

“Where beer goes wrong is in the transport of wort,” he said. “Working clean is the most important part of beer brewing.”

The MiniBrew isn’t cheap, selling for €1,200 (which is roughly $1,350 USD), but for those that was a powerful but open system — and one that is already shipping — the MiniBrew is a strong contender.

You can see my walk through of the MiniBrew below:

MiniBrew Beer Brewing (and Dispensing!) Appliance

DrinkWorks

While not technically a home-brewing machine, DrinkWorks at least deserves mention for one reason: the home adult beverage machine is a product of a joint venture between Keurig and the world’s largest beer company, AB InBev.

The DrinkWorks machine, which is now available in beta in the Budweiser’s hometown of St Louis, MO, to consumers statewide in Missouri and Florida, uses pods to make cocktails and, surprisingly, beer. While it’s unclear exactly how the beer is made from a pod, it’s not through traditional brewing and fermentation methods. But for those that like the idea of making cockails and beer at the press of a button with a Keurig-like pod system, you have to at least be intrigued by DrinkWorks.

While DrinkWorks has been fairly vague on details, we expect the product to be more widely rolled out later this year. For now the DrinkWorks machine will set you back $399, though pricing could change in future.

Meet U-Bruu, The Latest Take On The Modern Home Kegerator

Back when I was a kid, my dad converted an old fridge in our garage into a kegerator that served both beer and soft drinks from small minikegs he’d buy from a local distributor. While I was too young to consume the beer, I downed frosty mugs of cold Coca-Cola and root beer and became convinced a fridge that served up draught beverages was maybe the coolest invention ever conceived.

As an adult, I still think a home draught serve system is a very good idea. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have an extra fridge laying around. But the good news is we live in a golden age of beverage serving innovation that continues to bring us new ways to take simple cans or bottles of our favorite beverage and serve it up pro-style.

The latest take on the modern home serving machines is the U-Bruu, an interesting new spin on home draught machines that can not only serve up most any beverage on tap, but can also infuse the drink with nitrogen or CO2 and any number of ‘flavor enhancers.’

The U-Bruu has an inner chamber that allows the user to connect store-bought bottles or growlers of their favorite beverage and inverts them, ready to dispense. The system can fit up to twelve 12 ounce bottles of beer, eight sparkling wine bottles or four growlers.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the U-Bruu is the flavor infusion system. The system allows the user to use “flavor enhancers” to add flavors such as bacon, peach or peanut butter to the drinks. The U-Bruu will include a recipe book for special drink mixes such as coconut infused coffee or bacon flavored beer.

I’m also intrigued by the nitro/CO2 infuser capability of the U-Bruu. Being a fan of nitro coffee, I like the idea of doing it at home without weird contraption and also avoiding paying my local Starbucks $5 a glass.

The U-Bruu is the latest in a wave of interesting new home drink dispensing systems that have come to us via crowdfunded startups over the past few years. One of the earliest was the Synek system, which launched in June 2014. Then came Fizzics, which allowed users to turn any single can or bottle and promised draught-like foam. Last year we saw the Growler Chill, a system to create a tap-serve system for growlers.

While we’ve seen strong interest in home beer making startups like PicoBrew and MiniBrew the last few years, the reality is more people would prefer to skip the hard work of making a fermented beverage and get to the drinking part.  Luckily for us, nowadays we don’t have to convert our fridge to a kegerator to get a pro-style serve at home.

The U-Bruu, which is available for pre-order via Kickstarter, is expected to ship in October to backers and has already surpassed its funding goal of $39,000.