Beyond the fact that it costs around $5k, it seems to defeat the purpose of homebrewing. What fun would it be to pour some ingredients in a pot and set it and forget it.
What really gets me though, is the FAQ and the shots it takes a real homebrewers. Seems like they play up a lot of misconceptions and make a lot of untrue claims (e.g. “we’re the only ones who store our extract in cold temps”)
Seems like the kind of thing someone with a lot of money, no patience, and no talent would by so he can claim to be a ‘brewer’
I can see where someone might like to have one as a form of conspicuous consumption. The kind of thing where, assuming you’re into this sort of thing, half the fun is setting up in a basement rec room so you can show it off to your houseguests.
For me, though, my first reaction was a sort of confusion. It’s like they identified all of my favorite things about the hobby and figured out a way to systematically remove every single one of them from the process. But, like they allude to in that bit of the FAQ where they’re talking about how many homebrewers there are in NZ vs how may ex-homebrewers there are, I don’t think I’m really in their target market.
That was exactly my thought… It defeats the purpose in a lot of ways.
You don’t have to do x,y, or z…but I like doing x,y, and z.
While I’m sure there’s a market, it’s bothersome that somebody could just drop a bunch of cash, let the machine make beer, and say “I’m a homebrewer” and brag to his buddies…
To me, the guy that uses this is no more a brewer than a guy who throws a take and bake loaf of bread in the oven is a baker.
I have automated things out of my brewday that I disliked. I set up an electrical controller to heat my strike water and shut off when it’s ready. Also maintains mash temp electronically. Once I add an alarm it will even beep at me when strike temp is reached so I can just turn it on and go about my day. That said, I still do most of the things during the brewday. Automating to a certain degree is ok to me, but some people take away everything.
As Gordon Gekko said, “A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place”.
I would think most people on this forum, including me, cannot see the benefit of spending 5 G’s on brewing equipment and NOT having a 2bbl system with glycol-jacketed stainless steel conicals and automated HERMS/RIMS system.
But if some oil shiek or other trust fund kid wants to ‘brew beer’ and thinks he/she needs to spend $5k, please see the quote above.
