Picobrew, the company that produces the first self-contained, countertop beer-brewing appliance, is making a splash at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. IN addition to their revolutionary beer brewing system, the company has announced their new FreeStyle PicoPak BrewCrafter.
The FreeStyle feature is a powerful new capability that allows anyone to create custom craft beer PicoPaks for the award-winning Pico™ beer-brewing appliance.
With the Freestyle feature, brewers can create a new beer recipe by simply dragging and dropping grains, hops and yeast into a virtual PicoPak. PicoBrew then custom manufactures the PicoPak and delivers it to you fresh and ready-to-brew in just a few days.
“The new FreeStyle PicoPak capability and the FreeStyle BrewCrafter tool gives customers the ability to create their own unique craft beers, while PicoBrew does the heavy lifting of sourcing ingredients, and producing a tidy compostable brewing package, making the whole homebrewing process easier and more precise,” said Dr. Bill Mitchell, CEO, PicoBrew. “Customization has always been an important goal for us because Pico customers are craft beer aficionados. They like to brew great beers created by the best breweries around the world, but sometimes they also want to create their own unique beers and share them with others. We’re committed to providing both capabilities.”
Creating a custom beer begins with the brewer choosing from a list of known, good baseline beers. The brewer is then free to choose from a variety of grains, hops and yeast. The interface then makes suggestions to help the brewer choose ingredients that will result in a balanced, delicious brew. After creating the recipe, brewers can give their concoction its own unique name.
In addition, brewers that want to brew beers from some of their favorite breweries, can access a database of recipes. Brewers like 21st Amendment, Dieu du Ciel! and Rogue Ales along with more than 150 others have participated in this program.
Pico is an automated, Internet of Things (IoT), beer brewing appliance that can brew five liters of craft beer in about two hours and has a grain-to-glass serving time of just seven to 10 days, depending on the recipe. It uses eco-friendly, award-winning compostable PicoPak ingredient packs, which contain the fresh hops and grains needed to brew fresh, brew-pub quality craft beers. With the push of a button, Pico recognizes the PicoPak inserted and follows brewing process instructions transmitted over a local Wi-Fi connection. The sleek, compact and modern design of the Pico fits on a kitchen or bar countertop.
The Pico brewing machine requires no previous experience with homebrewing and comes with everything needed to start the process, including:
Pico is available for purchase at www.picobrew.com and online at Bloomingdale’s, Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, Best Buy, Frontgate and Amazon. The suggested retail price for the home brewing appliance is $799USD, and additional PicoPaks are available for $18.99 to $29.99.
