Gheorghe: The Nanobrewery

In response to yesterday's report on the Federal Government's role in delaying the distribution of craft beer to a thirsty market, a patriotic American asked a simple question freighted with import. "Maybe it's possible for people to brew, sell, buy, and drink beer without having to ask permission from our bureaucratic betters?", he wondered.

Libertarians, beer-drinkers, and all who chafe at the heavy yoke of bureaucracy, rejoice, for salvation beckons. A team led by former Microsoft exec Bill Mitchell (at this point, aren't we all former Microsoft execs) is on the verge of marketing the PicoBrew Zymatic, "an automatic beer brewing appliance that can create an endless stream of high-quality beers".

Mitchell, whose grandfather invented Tang and Pop Rocks (!), and his brother are avid homebrewers. They started PicoBrew in 2010, frustrated with the inconsistency inherent in the home brewing process, as well as the highly labor-intensive nature of it. Their objective: create the brewer's version of the breadmaker or espresso machine.

The result is both simple to use (and more importantly, clean) and sophisticated enough to enable users to consistently recreate recipes used by the pioneers of the craft brew scene or experiment with their own. The touchscreen-controlled brewing process takes an hour, and according to PicoBrew, beer is ready to drink as soon as five days after brewing.



The PicoBrew team's Kickstarter campaign has yielded more than twice as much funding as required, and the funds will be used to initiate final production activities. I'll buy the machine, but someone else is responsible for designing the labels. And we'll need someone to distract the Feds while we ship the results to our community members outside the DC area. Probably gonna want a lawyer involved, too. I think we've got that covered.

Boston Keg Party

As a non-partisan and deeply unserious blog, we have no interest in a discussion of the various causes of the ongoing shutdown of the Federal Government. So you won't find any commentary on the abject lunacy of the wingnut rump of the GOP here. (Though, if we think about it, dipshittery is a subject with which we have some expertise.) In fact, we would've been perfectly content to ignore the entire moronic freakshow.

But then they came for our beer.

As a result of the shutdown, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Board (TTB), a small agency within the Treasury Department, has seen its staffing significantly reduced. Among other things, the TTB processes applications for new breweries, recipes and labels. And now, it can't do any of that.

Swill-drinking mouth-breathers (this is definitely NOT a place for a parenthetical joke about correlation between Budweiser consumption and Tea Party leanings, and I wouldn't think of implying such a thing), will be unaffected by the TTB's effective closure, as mass-market brewers will still produce and distribute their standard products. But America's craft brewers, who routinely bring new seasonal and one-off products to market, are unable to do so without the TTB's approval.

Lagunitas Chief Operating Officer Todd Stevenson was quoted by the Boston Globe in a story on the issue. Per the Globe, "He said the company was planning to submit an application to package its autumn seasonal Hairy Eyeball in 22-ounce bottles instead of 12-ounce bottles but can’t move forward."

I hope you'll all join me this weekend in stocking up on your favorite craft brew and then depleting said stock. It's the least you can do for America.