I expected a bevy of automated and AI-assisted kitchen tech here at CES 2024 (and here are all our favorite CES picks so far), but I didn’t count on having to clandestinely chug a sip of beer and dodge the glaring eyes and stern looks of the people demonstrating the very machine that made the beer. And yet, there I was sneaking a tiny sip (or two) of brew poured fresh from the tap at iGulu’s F1 smart beer automated home brew appliance on the Las Vegas show floor before the convention cops shut them down — apparently iGulu had a missing beer license.
While I had better luck — and many more tastes — with the Keurig-style ColdSnap ice cream maker, the illegal taste of iGulu F1 brew was enough to wet my whistle. It had a nice, balanced flavor, a hoppy finish and was perfectly chilled, if not a tad under-carbonated for my liking.
Considering the low level of skill needed for making a batch — a monkey really could do it — I’d say iGulu has something figured out that its predecessor, the now-defunct PicoBrew, didn’t.
That’s a good start for this startup that’s attempting to break through to beer drinkers who want to make their own suds at home but lack the beer-making skills required of a typical brew.
All the ingredients to make a batch of beer in the iGulu home brewer.
That’s it.
The beer brews in full in about two weeks. It’s then housed in a self-cooling keg from which you can pour a frosty pint anytime you like. The machine itself is $599, but is available at a CES-special price of $420. Packs of ingredients for IPA, stout, wheat beer and ambers cost around $35 and make about 40 liters of ale or lager.
