Now Your Bartender Can Build You a Bespoke Beer

A barista-style machine called the Hoppier — essentially a beer tap crossed with an espresso machine — can recalibrate the strength of hops in a beer and tailor its flavor to taste.
The Hoppier

If hoppy beer makes you happy, then hoppier beer may make you happier. At least that seems to be the thinking behind the Hoppier, a barista-style machine that can automatically recalibrate the strength of hops in a beer and tailor its flavor to suit your taste.

Hoping to hop on both the trend toward product personalization and the rage for craft beer, the U.K. product design and development firm behind the Hoppier, Cambridge Consultants, has created a device — basically a beer tap crossed with an espresso machine, with a few extra high-tech bells and whistles — that uses pressure to extract hops and add them to your beer.

In essence, the contraption speeds up the dry-hopping process, which normally takes about two weeks, “by adding extra hops at the point of dispense,” says Edward Brunner, the head of food and beverage systems for Cambridge Consultants, to turn an average pint into one that meets an individual customer’s personal standard of perfection.

“The aroma of the finished pint can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the quantity of hops and by changing the type of hops used,” Brunner explains.

The machine can also be used to add spicy or fruity flavors to your beer, if that’s the sort of thing that makes you hoppy … er, happy.

Photo courtesy of Cambridge Consultants

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