New beer gadgets for men

The mancave (aka the shed or basement) will get crowded if men splash out on all the latest beer gizmos released over the past few months.

Time is of the essence if a memorable beer is needed for your weekend party. But while you really want to surprise and impress friends with your technical and culinary prowess, the options are limited.

Buying a run-of-the-mill six-pack is definitely a no-go, especially as AB-InBev has gobbled up a third of the world’s beer supply. You need to show some originality.

On the other hand, you don’t have the time and technical interest in cooking up a traditional home brew. And, you really don’t want to spend about EUR 2,000 on an automated brewing system like the Whirlpool Vessi.

Although craft and microbreweries are currently trendy, you would really like to do more than grab the wildest looking IPA label in the store.

Before you start crying in your beer in despair, I have news for you: you have several choices and they even might be affordable. You can skip the craft beers entirely and make a nanobeer—almost all by yourself.

Here are three options to think about.

SodaStream has carved out a market niche for itself by providing easy-to-make soft drinks for the home consumer. Instead of carrying heavy bottles home from the supermarket and then adding these empty bottles into the global waste stream, you can get smaller bottles of concentrate, add water and do the carbonation yourself.

Now SodaStream is ready to help you do the same thing with beer. With the Sodastream Beer Bar, you can get a litre of Pilsner-style beer concentrate and then all you need to do is add two-thirds of carbonated water for a freshly mixed beer. A SodaStream beer starter kit will only set you back EUR 50. That’s a lot of money for 3 litres of a 4.5 percent ABV beverage, but of course you can re-use the carbonation device as often as you like for soft drinks or bubbly water.

While making beer from concentrate may seem horribly non-traditional, it is a known phenomenon. In brewing circles, it is called high-density brewing and it enables brewers to make more beer with limited equipment.

SodaStream’s Beer Bar has not been launched globally, so you have to be in the right country to find and buy it. “So far we are selling the beer concentrate just in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy,” SodaStream said. “Additional countries are not planned at the moment. Also not additional flavours.”

For American consumers wanting a SodaStream approach to their beer, but US availability and a wider product selection, they might want to look into the Colorado based Pat’s Backcountry Beverages.

Alternatively, you could spend USD 140 on a device called Fizzics, which uses sound waves to give beer a smoother head. The drawback is that you will still need to buy or brew a beer first. The Fizzics device lets you place a beer inside it – either can, bottle, or growler – then pull the tap for a modified beverage to appear. The judicious use of sound waves produces a beer head with smaller, longer lasting bubbles. This also creates a positive change on the taste of the beer itself and increases the length of time that the head remains.

Overall, comments on Amazon and social media over Fizzics are quite positive. The few negative voices have sounded off over the negative taste impact on extremely hoppy beers and some gripes over the manufacturing quality of the device.

Fizzics is marketed as a way to make craft beer even better. The product was launched via a Kickstarter campaign and the company has kept a razor sharp edge to its social media presence. Their video channel has them visiting microbreweries and just talking to the brewmasters about … beer.

For the US consumer, getting a Fizzics is as easy as a visit to Amazon or their company website. In Europe, the Fizzics gadget is harder and more expensive to acquire. While their customer service stated “We ship internationally via Fizzicz.com”, there are additional charges.

Competition for equipping the mancave is going to get hot – even for a cool beer. This January, the world’s biggest brewer, AB-InBev, announced the formation of a joint venture with Keurig Green Mountain. Keurig is best known for capsule coffee machines, but in 2015 it launched the Keurig Kold for making carbonated beverages - similar to SodaStream. However, Keurig Kold floundered in the market and was discontinued a year later, perhaps due to its stiff USD 350 price tag.

But that flop was last year. The new joint venture is a sign that someone now sees more potential in home-mixed alcoholic beverages than in soft drinks.

Whatever the global aspirations of AB-InBev, Fizzics, or SodaStream – these companies have got you off the hook. There are now reasonable and affordable options to home-produce a unique beer without the operational headaches. The choice is yours.