The Greater Good Fresh Brewing Co. - Pinter!

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stubrewworx

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I was bought one of these from the in-laws at Christmas. I like beer and I have made beer, albeit around 6 years ago, but I always plan to dust off the kettle and get back to it, so The Greater Good Fresh Brewing Co - Pinter! was a well thought present on their part.

My first impression, after a little research into what it is and how it works was; this seems like an over-priced bit of kit which will be used once (actually twice because 2 presses were also provided) and then stored away.

However, use it I had to and actually wanted to because I started to think how I could incorporate it into my current set-up.

A Quick How-To
The Pinter! basically comes with just 2 parts, The actual vessel (with integrated but removable tap) and a docking station.
The Fresh Beer packs come with ‘Fresh Press’, ‘Purifier’ and yeast.

• Firstly you set the carbonation dial to ‘carbonate’, which basically closes the adjustable pressure release valve to stop any leakage.

• Mix the ‘purifier’ (sodium percarbonate) with warm water via the screw-off lid. Screw lid back on, shake it about, attach to the docking station, attach tap handle, run some through the tap, remove from docking station (empty this), empty the vessel. No need to rinse.

• Fill vessel with water to the fill level mark (5.6l), add bottle of ‘Fresh Press’ (700ml), add supplied yeast (I don’t think the marketing team thought of a name for yeast), attach lid, shake, attach to docking station and let ferment for specified time or your own desired time.

• After fermentation, move the Pinter! to the sink and detach from the docking station. You can now move the Pinter! to the fridge to condition for specified or desired time. Also, empty the docking station of yeast and trub (approx. 400ml, so that leaved roughly 5.9l in the Pinter!, clean docking station.

• To dispense, turn carbonation dial to off, which opens the valve to allow oxygen in, attach tap handle and pour. Re-set dial if you don’t plan to drink all 10 pints.

• To clean, they say to rinse and purify when you make the next brew, but I soaked with some PBW.

I chose the Public House IPA to try first, which is somewhat their flagship beer. I fermented for 10 days and conditioned for 10 days, because from experience I knew longer the better.

The first pour was cloudy as it’s basically the sediment like the bottom of a bottle conditioned beer. This is due to the vessel sloping down towards the tap for dispensing purposes. Still went down the neck though.
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The second pour was much better. Clarity was ok and a decent head.

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The beer itself? Meh. I’ve had worse. A definite homebrew twang. I’d struggle to call it an IPA, or at least my opinion of what an IPA is. Not a lot of hop character. I did serve very cold, so perhaps removing from the fridge may have help some flavours? I don't feel it required longer conditioning time, so a 20 day turn-around was quite good.

But I wasn’t expecting great beer.

I spread the 10ish pints over 2 consecutive nights, towards the end carbonation was diminishing and no head at all. The last glass, with a tip of the unit was cloudy again.

I’ve now just set the Craftwerk Pilsner pack on the go, but I blended a hop tea of Northdown, EKG and Bram X with it.

Do I recommend the Pinter!?

Not really, not as the supplier intend you to use it. £15 to make 10 pints of not very good beer. You could enhance the kit with yeast, dry etc but it isn’t cost effective.

I suspect many of the Christmas recipients will soon move these into the loft once the supplied packs are consumed.

However, I do think the Pinter! has a place beyond being used with their kits. Especially for small batch brewers or test batches.

• It’s an enclosed fermenter (I live in a studio with a dog and have a fruit fly problem at the moment, which are not related to brewing so this is a plus for me).
• I think it actually looks ok and fits most places in the home.
• It ferments under pressure, so all the benefits of that.
• You can harvest yeast from the docking station.
• You could potentially use the docking station to introduce additional flavourings (hop teas, coffee/cocoa elixirs etc) after initial fermentation and dumping the yeast/trub. – I need to test if the docking station is one-way.
• You don’t need to bottle or re-keg and it fits in the fridge (side-ways for me but I do have the slimmest built-in fridge).
• You have the option to ferment without pressure. The dial allows to adjust desired carbonation but I’m unsure how effective it is.
• You can buy an additional vessel without the docking station for £35, this would allow you have a rotation of brews. One conditioning whilst other is fermenting.

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Sure it has some disadvantages:

• Build quality. If the tap goes, beer is everywhere. Especially when fermenting as the tap is at the bottom. Carbonation dial feel flimsy (I read it blew off for one user, so yeast choice could be limited!).
• You can’t bottle. Well, if you ferment without pressure and the tap doesn’t aerate the beer too much, it could be a possibility?
• Once tapped, I’d say 2 days worth of drinking (which actually suits me).
• You can’t check how the fermentation is going, but a tilt / ispindel could sort that?

I have a few of my own brews planned to go in the Pinter! over the coming months, so I’ll update accordingly.
 
It's USP seems to be as an overpriced novelty gift.

At £1.50 a pint it's as cheap to save yourself the time and hassle and buy a few bottles of Proper Job ( or other decent ale of your choice ) from the supermarket.

None of the reviews I've seen end up with an appetising looking pint, also you have to vent the cask so it won't last long.

At best it could be a stepping stone to learning how to brew properly but a book would probably be a better choice of gift it that is the goal.
 
I've got one and am on my second brew, my first, the APA, was nice but, as above, not as hoppy as I'd like. I chucked in around 150g of sugar at the start to try and bump the strength up. I've no hydrometer so no idea of the OG/FG or ABV. Leaving the dial on carbonated and controlling the foam with the tap gave me a pretty clean pint. I dumped what was left after the weekend into a mini keg and put some CO2 on it, was still perfectly drinkable the weekend after. I've just taken the dock off of my second brew, a Pilsner, and it smelt great. Have some silicon tubing on order to go over the tap spout, if it arrives soon then will rack into a Corny and chuck some hops in to see if that improves things.
Definitely a gateway drug, now looking at kegmenters!
 
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