For most of us consumers, beer is something we buy in bottles and cans, its creation process something of a mystery; we have a vague notion of grains and a fermentation process being involved. Home brewers more firmly understand the science, but much of their alchemy happens inside opaque stainless steel containers, with your average home brewing set-up hewing to the Walter White Meth Lab school of design. So for his final-year design project Freddie Paul , a Product Design student at London’s South Bank University, decided to make the home brewing process more transparent. Literally. Beer Tree is a gravity fed home brewing kit for brewing craft ales. It concentrates on the brewing process as something to be enjoyed and celebrated. The process can be completely visualised from start to finish, involving the user more than traditional kits to create a strong sense of satisfaction and pride over the final product. The video gives you a better sense of what the Beer Tree looks like in action: We’re digging Paul’s use of laser-etched graphics on the control panel, his use of materials and the overall form. One commenter on the video is more critical: “It looks impossible to clean and sanitize, your mash tun will lose so much heat, it looks like you can’t vorlauf” and more brewerspeak. Another commenter is more upbeat: “My close friends and I have all agreed. We would pay good money to own one of these. Seriously consider making a Kickstarter for manufacturing of this product. I would sign up to back you TODAY.” Paul, if you’re reading this: Given that you’ve graduated and we don’t see a current employer on your Coroflot profile, perhaps the crowdsourcing is worth a go? Check out Paul’s shots of the development process after the jump. (more…)
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Flotspotting: Freddie Paul’s Beer Tree
