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We love to drink fresh beer. And trust us, we drink plenty of it for “research.” And while making beer may seem magical, it all comes down to Science (with a capital S).
Which means you can perform some of these very same magic tricks at home. In fact, we have many folks’ humble homebrewing hobby to thank for many of the breweries we love today. But beer just tastes a little better knowing you’ve made it yourself, right? And how great would it be to make your new, favorite beers from your favorite breweries all across the country right at home? To entertain, share, and be proud of enjoying beer brewed by you?
Which is precisely why Pinter, one of the most incredible modern inventions, according to Time Magazine, will power your best year in beer in 2024.
The all-in-one draft beer maker creates uber-fresh, award-winning beer for you right at home in as little as seven to ten days. For instance, the 2022 European Beer Challenge gold-medal-winning Dark Stout or the 2022 World Beer Awards gold-medal-winning Lost in Translation. And, with Pinter, you even have the opportunity to make recipes from some of the top breweries across the country.
Born from the brains of two incredibly clever, crafty engineers who, at eighteen, just wanted to make beer themselves instead of paying for it, Pinter has evolved into one of the most ingenious beer-making systems on the market.
We sat down with Pinter Co-Founder Alex Dixon to find out exactly why Pinter is Time Magazine’s Best Invention of 2020, how Pinter works, and why fresh beer is always the best beer.
Why Is Pinter Time Magazine’s Best Invention?
Nothing else creates incredible, fresh beer for you at home as easily as Pinter.
With its innovative all-in-one vessel, you can make up to twenty different styles of beer—some from top breweries in the world like Yeastie Boys or Brewgooder—in just a few days that you can tap for yourself or people coming over for any occasion.
And you can make up to 10 imperial pints of outstanding beer for less than you think.
Dixon says cost is a massive advantage with Pinter. “You don’t need hundreds and hundreds of dollars,” he says. Currently retailing for $199, Pinter, compared to other all-in-one homebrewing machines, “we’re about a fifth or a quarter of the price of most of them,” Dixon shares. “We’re trying to be the easiest, most accessible value-for-your-money product out there that still produces amazing beer.”
Dixon emphasizes that last part. He’s as proud of the engineering innovation as their beer recipes, which they call Fresh Presses.
And with the UK-based invention’s recent launch in the U.S., they have a whole host of American craft breweries they plan to collab with in 2024.
From the recipes to the actual Pinter itself, the innovation here is truly impressive.
From Freshman Beer to Fresh Beer
Pinter Co-Founders Ralph Broadbent and Alex Dixon met at Manchester University while on a ski trip. Drawn to each other’s entrepreneurial spirits, the pair started a music festival together. “We got the bite for running our own business,” says Dixon.
Homebrewing a bit on the side, if he’s honest to make cheap alcohol (mostly cider), Dixon says the entire process put off Broadbent, “who doesn’t like faffy things … [or] doing loads of washing up.”
The two sat there and thought: “Why isn’t homebrew targeted to younger people and especially the student market?” says Dixon. As a side hustle to the festival business, they decided to put those engineering skills to the test, designing something “just to make it as simple as possible for someone to homebrew,” he says.
That first invention, essentially a hard cider bag in a box kit, needed you just to add water and a sachet of yeast before it fermented and made you fresh cider.
Dixon and Broadbent sold 80,000-90,000 of these early prototypes in the first year.
Pretty quickly, the pair realized they were on to something.
What Is Pinter?
Today, Pinter has evolved into a precision-engineered technology-driven machine that allows you to make twelve pints of award-winning fresh beer at home in about a week.
“We realized that people didn’t want cheap drinks; they wanted great drinks,” says Dixon.
Cue the light bulb.
Dixon and Broadbent set to work creating top-notch recipes—dubbed Fresh Presses—in over twenty different beer styles, from IPAs and pales to stouts, English bitters, brown ales, and everything in between.
Brewing-wise, Pinter’s unique innovation truly sets it apart from other homebrew kits out there.
“To my knowledge, we are the only one-vessel fermentation, conditioning, and tapping tank,” says Dixon.
How Does Pinter Work?
Using Pinter seriously couldn’t be easier. Whether you’re entirely new to homebrewing and just want to give it a shot or simply want fresh beer in the fridge whenever you come home from work or a rec league softball game, Pinter has you covered.
You start with the Pinter in its brewing dock and fire up the accompanying app, which gives you step-by-step animated instructions. “It’s not like an IKEA big booklet that you have to scroll through,” says Dixon. “It’s an animated instruction set that really holds your hand all the way through.”
But Dixon stresses that the process is still pretty easy to follow even without the instructions.
First, you purify the Pinter, cleaning and sterilizing the product because that “is obviously really important for a healthy fermentation,” he says. “Then the customer fills [the Pinter] with water, adds in the Fresh Press, which is a blend of different types of malt extracts, hops, and hop oils, and a few other little adjuncts … shake that up and turn it into your wort.”
From there, you just throw in a sachet of yeast that comes in the kit and leave the Pinter upright to ferment for four to seven days, depending on the beer or beverage you’re brewing.
At the end of fermentation, you detach the Pinter from the brewing dock, which has collected all the dead yeast. “It automatically closes the Pinter up, and you’re left with a ‘bright beer’ in the Pinter,” says Dixon, referring to beer that no longer has yeast in suspension.
Because the Pinter brews at pressure, the machine also fully self-carbonates your beer. “You don’t need to do any secondary fermentation or add any gas canisters,” explains Dixon. “[The beer] is all naturally carbonated from the production of CO2 during fermentation.”
The other clever thing with Pinter, Dixon explains, is that he and Broadbent designed the Pinter to turn the other way around so it fits in your fridge. “We vertically brew to allow everything to drop out, and then you put it horizontally into your fridge, click the tap handle on, and you’re ready to condition!”
From here, the CO2 captured in the headspace of the Pinter actually dispenses beer straight into your glass. Dixon says they also designed the tap to react to pressure as the Pinter sends you beer. “So the customer only has to pull it a small amount when we’re at high pressure, and then, as the beer keg empties, they pull it further forward to dispense,” says Dixon. “The great thing about that is that we never let oxygen touch the beer … which is the biggest enemy of beer.”
Dixon and Broadbent have seriously thought of every single step of homebrewing, making it as easy as possible for you just to pick the beer style you want to make, add water and yeast, be a little patient, and then set essentially a mini-keg into your fridge that’s already equipped to dispense.
Just tap the handle, and you have fresh, fresh beer.
“Everyone knows every minute [the beer] is not in the fermenter, it’s degrading,” says Dixon. “There is such a benefit from drinking straight out of the tank.”
What Are the Top Beers You Can Make With Pinter?
With over twenty different recipes to choose from in the U.K. and up to twelve in the U.S., with more coming down the line, Pinter has a style for everyone.
We asked Dixon to pull out his three current favorites.
Space Hopper Double IPA
Cosmic, hoppy, and bold, this 7% ABV DIPA is Pinter’s best-selling and highest-rated beer. One of Pinter’s original recipes, Space Hopper, benefits from something Dixon and Broadbent call The Hopper.
Another engineering ingenuity, The Hopper is a valve system that adds additional hops so the customer can basically dry hop post-fermentation. “You just get this massive, fresh, absolutely huge blast of hop flavor,” says Dixon.
In Space Hopper, you get a beer that’s “just a big, juicy, hoppy IPA,” he says.
Dark Matter Classic Stout
The European Beer Challenge winner, Dark Matter, is a sweet, full-bodied, slightly roasty stout that tastes smooth, deep, and rich.
“That has been a staple on our roster since the start,” says Dixon. “It’s just a chocolatey stout that’s really popular in the U.K.”
Sunlit Lager
Golden, crisp, and smooth, Sunlit is just the ultimate everyday lager. Featuring Czech Saaz hops balanced by smooth British malt, this sunshine gold lager benefits from a new strain of lager yeast from Lallemand called NovaLager™.
Since lagers traditionally ferment at colder temperatures for extended periods, Dixon says they’ve been challenging to nail for Pinter, which ferments at room temperature. But since this new lager yeast ferments at room temperature, “it’s completely changed the dial on how we deliver a lager,” says Dixon. “We’re really confident. … It’s obviously meant to be quite a clean taste without esters and things like that … so we’re really excited about customers trying our new lager version with the yeast.”
Seasonal, Sour, Hazy, Oh My
Since launching in the U.S., Dixon says they’re working on even more recipes for the foreseeable future.
“The American palate … has loads of opportunities,” says Dixon. “If you go to an [American] taproom, the range of flavors is certainly more diverse. You have dessert stouts and lots of fruity flavored beers that can do well in the Pinter.”
For instance, Dixon says they plan to explore making seasonal styles. Inspired by a trip to Great Lakes Brewing Company, whose Christmas Ale is the brewery’s best-selling beer even though it’s only around for a few months, Dixon indicates they have exciting limited-edition beers planned.
Although he wouldn’t divulge too much at the time of publication, Dixon says Pinter also plans to drop a sour beer specifically for the U.S. and, of course, a hazy.
Funny enough, considering “we spent all day trying to make [our beers] as clear as possible,” laughs Dixon. “Now we’re trying to literally add things back in to make it hazy again!”
Beyond their standard recipes, Pinter has also collaborated on recipes with some big-time breweries.
Pinter Collabed With Who Now?
Pinter isn’t just coming up with recipes on their own. They’ve tapped other breweries to work together on a collab beer or to take one of the brewery’s established beers and recreate it as closely as possible for Pinter.
For instance, Yeastie Boys Bigmouth Remixed is a true-to-style recreation of the Wellington, New Zealand-based brewery’s extra pale, unfiltered, hoppy session ale. Dixon says that beer is still one of Pinter’s best sellers.
They also collabed with Yeastie Boys on an entirely new recipe called Kiwi Me, a New Zealand-inspired IPA.
Next door to Pinter’s headquarters, you’ll find a British brewery called Signature Brew. The two teamed up to recreate Roadie, a sessionable IPA with notes of grapefruit and lime.
And over in Scotland, Brewgooder, a purpose-led beer brand, partnered with Pinter for its Brewgooder Hazy IPA Remixed, a tropical, pineapple, peach hazy with Centennial and Cascade hops.
Dixon says they have big plans to collab with breweries in the U.S., too. Although he couldn’t divulge any details about the who at the time of publication, he could share a bit of the what.
He said to expect an American wheat beer that, compared to a Belgian witbier, will be a bit crisper and lighter. “I personally don’t like drinking Belgian wheat beers because I find them a bit too overpowering,” says Dixon. “But the American one, which I’d never tried before, has more of a hint of wheat, and it’s really refreshing.”
Also, Dixon says they have a powerful tropical IPA in the works. “Big, fruity, hoppy IPA, with a bit higher ABV,” he says. “That’s the thing that we’ve really noticed. That’s probably one of the biggest differences between the U.K. and the U.S.: the higher ABVs.”
Yes, we sure do like our potent IPAs.
Lastly, Dixon pointed out that since Pinter can circumvent the three-tiered distribution system, their collabs in the U.S. could provide the perfect opportunity for breweries to distribute beer where they haven’t before.
“We want to be a platform for craft breweries, especially in the U.S., where they’ve got all these distribution challenges,” Dixon explains. “All of a sudden, if you live in New York, [with Pinter] you can start tasting beers designed by a brewery in California.”
How Can I Get Myself a Pinter Right Now!?
Dixon left us with this question: “When you want a beer at home, how amazing is it that you’ve made it yourself and you’re tapping it straight from the fridge?”
Sounds pretty amazing to us and the 85,000 folks around the world who have already given Pinter a shot.
So, if you’re ready to see what Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and Hop Culture are all buzzing about, head over to their website to get one delivered to you in either the U.S. or the U.K.
