The ‘Keurig Of Craft Beer’ Is About To Make Every Bro In America A Home Brewer

America runs on beer, and soon every bro in America will be able to brew his own beer at home using The Pico, aka the ‘Keurig for Craft Beer’. Brewing beer at home can be a daunting task if you’ve never done it before, and given that the kits can be somewhat elaborate there are quite a few barriers to entry, but Seattle-based PicoBrew just launched the ‘Pico’ and home-brewing just got easier than ever before.

All you have to do is toss in a PicoPod, press start, and let the machine do it’s thing (you can adjust alcohol content and bitterness how you want), then after the 2 hours of the PicoPod you transfer to the adjoining keg, add yeast, let it sit and you’re good to go. Here’s how it all works:

Over 50 craft breweries are already on board to create PikoPaks, including Dogfish Head and Rogue, two of the most respected breweries around. They also make select PikoPaks with a variety of beer flavors for people who aren’t yet sure what sorts of beers they want to brew at home, including (but not limited to) the following:

It’s currently in the KickStarter phase, but unlike most KickStarters this is actually a VERY GOOD THING. Why? Because the Pico will cost $1,000 retail once it’s released to the public but right now it only costs $500 on KickStarter, and they’ve already reached their goal, so the product is definitely going to market.

So how did the ‘Keurig for Craft Brewing’ come to fruition? Here’s a little backstory on the company from their KickStarter:

We started PicoBrew in 2010 to pursue the vision of enabling craft brewing at home leveraging new smart appliances in the same way the automatic espresso maker has enabled home espresso production. After years of prototypes and R&D effort we launched the award winning PicoBrew Zymatic in the Fall of 2013. While PicoBrew has been awarded 3 patents for the innovative technology and processes we invented on the way to Zymatic, we knew the job was not yet done. We knew that to really get the world brewing we had to make an appliance that was smaller, more affordable and even simpler to use.

With those 3 tenets as our product compass, we set out to produce the Pico. Iterations of the Pico began as 80-20 rail prototypes and evolved into closer-and-closer to form-factor products by late 2014. After joining forces with Flex as our manufacturing partner our production plan solidified. It’s taken several hundred test batches of beer and many man-years of effort, but we are now a month away from EVT samples and on track for production early next year.

I don’t know if you bros each have $500 laying around to throw at a home brewing kit, but if you do then I HIGHLY SUGGEST checking out their KickStarter and consider becoming a backer, because you don’t see products this badass sold at 50% off that often.

As they claim, they are in fact the easiest/best way to brew quality craft beer at home, but if that’s too expensive for you there are other options:

Mr. Beer Premium Gold Edition Home Brewing Craft Beer Kit: $54.95

and

Monster Brew Home Brewing Supp Complete Beer Equipment Kit (K6) with 6 Gallon Glass Carboy: $84.99