Tag: beer

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Food and Beverage

The Hypercool lets your brews chill in only a minute

The heat of the summer season means beaches, barbeques and lots of brews, something the crowdfunding world has always been cognizant of with projects like the Coolest Cooler and the Kreweser. But while these offerings meant easier ways to transport food and beverages along with extra features like USB chargers and wheels, none address the age old problem of warm drinks, aka the bane of a get-together.

patent-claimedThe HYPERCOOL portable cooler address this problem using the magic of physics. It can be filled up with water, frozen overnight, and then be used to rapidly cool cans or tall boys of one’s favorite beverage. How? Using an external motor that spins the can over that bed of ice. The friction cools the beverage in just 60 seconds; wait 30 more seconds and it’ll be ice cold.

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Food and Beverage

Ice Jack rapid beverage chiller ends scourge of warm beer

What’s worse than coming home after a long day at work craving a beer and realizing there’s none there? Warm beer. Having only warm beer available is objectively worse.

Through some clever design, the team behind the Ice Jack is looking to end the practice of waiting far too long for beer to cool to an appropriately potable temperature.The product attaches to the tops of most beverages (but most importantly, beer), spinning it around while submerged in ice at a rapid rate to aid in cooling. The result is a beverage that is about 38° in just 2.5 minutes versus far longer without it.

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Food and Beverage

Fizzics makes beers fizzier, can go anywhere beer can

Store-bought beer is just fine, most of the time. But sometimes one just craves the delicious tap taste of beer at a bar.

Fizzics allows beer drinkers to take any store bought beer can, bottle or growler and run it through a tap. It’s lightweight and portable, resembling a Keurig machine. To use, stick the bottle or can into the holder. Insert a tube inside and close the lid. Then place a glass below the spigot and pull the tap handle for enhanced beer. Fizzics is designed to create the perfect foam head. It runs on standard AA batteries so it can be used anywhere including the beach or on a boat.

This may be just the thing for beer connoisseurs. Many other beer makers at home, like the Synek, need to be filled at the local pub. It’s definitely appealing that Fizzics works with any beer. One will cost backers a donation of $119. Fizzics is looking for $50,000 of funding on Indiegogo.

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Food and Beverage Interviews

The Backerjack Interview: SYNEK’s Eric Stoddard on tapping into the countertop beer market

Having raised nearly $650,000 and netting a Backerjack Editor’s Choice Award, the SYNEK countertop beer dispenser has been dubbed, somewhat misleadingly, “the Keurig of beers.” Backerjack caught up with Synek’s director of customer engagement Eric Stoddard, to trade drinking stories about how company came back from a slow campaign start and was accepted into the camaraderie of small, local brewers

Backerjack: Could you talk a little bit about what SYNEK is?

Stoddard: Sure. It’s a countertop beer dispenser that gives you access to any beer at home on draft at very high quality. The bag holds up to 30 psi, and you can get it from any tap anywhere — whether it be your local brewery or wherever it may be — and you can take that home and you get a shelf life of 30 days.

Backerjack: So, unlike Keurig where you can buy a K-Cup, this is more like a storage method where it stores already brewed beer?

Stratter: Yeah, we’re sort of packaging company, a social packaging company because of how ingrained we are with breweries and helping them connect with their customers. There’s a lot of big issues in this industry, and how we came about as an idea was by considering the problems affecting lots of breweries. Smaller guys can’t afford to buy equipment because it’s a huge fixed investment upfront, so they have no way to get beer unless they use growlers.

The bad thing with growlers is that the beer only lasts for two days, three days if you’re lucky, once opened. It isn’t the most feasible option for most people. We’re trying to expand on that where now we offer this gallon size bag that’s able to be filled up the exact same way you would a growler and it’s available to a larger group of people. Now, these smaller breweries have a way to get higher quality beer out of the brewery.

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Food and Beverage

Pop & Stop pops open a cold one, stops beer waste

It’s frustrating when a beer drinker opens up a cold one and somebody carelessly knocks it over–especially when it’s an expensive brew. Equally frustrating is when somebody wants to save the rest of that bottle of premium beer for the next day (or up to 48 hours later) after passing out drunk before being able to finish it.The two-in-one bottle opener and sealer Pop & Stop was created mainly to address the catastrophic problem of beer waste.

The keychain-sized product is designed to be portable and replace the bottle opener that many people already carry. It won’t cut your leg if it’s in your pocket and move the wrong way, like some traditional metal bottle openers will. More importantly, it has the added advantage of also serving as a sealing device for a bottle after it’s opened. Backers who pledge $6 will get a molded unit when it ships in May, while those who pledge $8 will get a 3D printed one immediately. The Denver inventor who made it is looking to raise $8,500 by Feb. 21.

There is a huge potential market for Pop & Stop. Unfortunately, it won’t work on some twist-off bottles. So, if the drinker’s favorite beer only comes in that kind of bottle, the product will have little appeal to that person. The molded version has a smoother texture than the 3D printed version, and also features stronger plastic. But the molded version is not recyclable, a distinct drawback.

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Food and Beverage

Brewski lets you create signature beer, wine or cider at home

Creating one’s own drinks can make for a great conversation starter at a party or when entertaining at home. And Brewski allows those who enjoy exercising their creative muscles in this area the opportunity to make beer, wine or cider and flavor it to personal tastes.

The drink creation station makes about 2.5 gallons at a time (or 30 standard beer bottles) and stores easily on a shelf or convenient counter space. Brewski offers video tutorials that explain how to create beer using the product and included brewing kit, or it is compatible with other brewing kits. Beer bottles with non-twist tops can be washed, refilled and recapped with the bottle capper.

Interested backers might also want to check out Brewie, a similar home-brewing product, but one that doesn’t offer wine and cider like the Brewski does. This campaign seeks to raise $150,000 NZD (~$112,000 USD) on Kickstarter. Early bird backers get one product for $369 (~$275 USD) with an expected delivery of July 2015.

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Food and Beverage

Handle This Cup helps keep your brew where it belongs

Some people would say that there’s nothing that rounds out a great sporting event like a cup of beer. But getting that golden delight from concession stand to stadium seat without spilling it can be challenging. Especially when one has been delegated as the group beer-run-boy.

In order to help keep as much brew in everyone’s Solo cup as possible, Handle This Cup was created. The plastic cup carrying system allows for multiple cups to be carried in one hand, and the only apparent limit is how much beer one can lift and how rapidly one’s head happens to be spinning from any previous beers. The product can be customized to have the logo and colors of one’s favorite team, or with one’s business logo for advertising.

Even though this product is really for those game-loving beer drinkers, it’s still useful, albeit slightly silly. Beer-loving backers might also enjoy checking out Kickoff Kaddy, Das Kühling, and Brewie. This campaign seeks to raise $13,421 by February 9, 2015. Early bird backers get one product for $10 with an expected delivery of May 2015.

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Food and Beverage Home

Brewie brews beer at home both for the novice and expert brewer

Beer is a popular drink among many adults. Its brewing process, however, is a bit complicated, keeping people from being able to brew their own beer. Balancing out the ingredients and letting the beer ferment are simply too difficult for a novice to do at home.

Brewie makes it possible to brew one’s own beer at home. This large metal box comes with yeast, hops, malt and different recipes. To use, place the Brew Pad in the box and scan the accompanying card. It will begin to brew. Brewing takes about 5-6 hours for the initial cooking period and about 5-16 days of fermenting.

Brewie offers all different kinds of beer including: IPAs, reds, stouts, and pilseners. This at-home brew systems goes through 10 different steps in its brewing, so the user can add additional hops whenever they want, making it possible to brew their own kinds of beer and virtually any kind of beer there is. In addition, Brewie makes brewing beer fun for experts too and gives control over 23 parameters of the process, if the user wants.

While this machine is large and bulky, it does have some cool promise. At-home brewing usually involves a lot of accessories and work in order to create a great tasting beer. Brew takes all of the hassle out of at-home brewing. Its automatic and manual options make it versatile too, allowing it to be enjoyed by beginners and experts alike. One will cost backers a donation of $1,299 for the beginner pack. Brewie is hoping to raise $100,000 on Indiegogo.

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Food and Beverage

Das Kühling makes your beer cold as ice without much sacrifice

If there is anything that the Germans can do right, it’s beer. In fact, if there’s a way to arrange it so that the beer comes out of the kitchen faucet, they will find it.

Das Kühling makes beer lovers’ dreams come true. This portable music amp turned beer amp can easily go from the kitchen sink to road trip to rock concert since it only takes 12V DC to make it function. So it can be hooked up to a car or truck battery. The user connects a beer keg directly to the amp, set it to the desired temperature and in minutes the beer is cold and ready for drinking. An indicator light lets the user know how much has been poured. Once the beer is gone, the amp self-cleans when hooked up to a line of fresh water. It’s not entirely clear how much the product weighs overall, and it is presently compatible with G-type coupler kegs, though broadening the compatibility is in the works.

This product will likely have wide appeal from the young adult to the baby boomer who appreciates rock-n-roll classics and memorabilia. And of course, anyone who feels that it’s the beer that makes the party. Backers who like to add some games to their beer and fun might want to check out the Allin and Shot Timer campaigns.  This campaign seeks to raise $150,000. For $499, backers get one Das Kühling with an expected delivery of August 2015.

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Food and Beverage

ShotGunR punches a hole through the inebriation time continuum

There is a line from a particular song that comes to mind with this product: “So You Had a Bad Day…” It seems, though, that the creation of ShortGunR might be tied to more than just one bad day.  To borrow a concept from a popular comedian, one might need a career change if one feels the need to invent a more effective way to shotgun a beer.

Nevertheless, until that dream career is obtained, downing multiple beers as rapidly as possible is, well, one way to kill the time…not to mention lots of brain cells. That aside, it’s not entirely clear what materials are used to create this instrument of party animal assistance, but it is interestingly similar in its design to the OXO Steel Bottle Opener. This campaign seeks to raise $10,000 by December 7, 2014. Early bird backers get one product for $4, with an expected delivery of January 2015.