UBrew

[Aarondapastyman]

Excellent stuff cheers! Going to order some stuff over the weekend to get moving on this. :)

How does this look for a starter recipe? I think it should be immensely quaffable but any thoughts?

Regards flame out additions, when would you remove them? I’ve only done kits to date so only ever dry hopped.

 

[Aarondapastyman]

Did the UBrew course on Saturday, it was good but definitely geared towards those who've never ventured into any kind of brewing before.

We had three groups, each group made a different beer, an IPA, an amber ale and a porter. Each beer was made in 40-45 litre batches.

I'd recommend if you're thinking of getting into AG and want to run through the process first. Plus they do some decent beers too.

In other news bottling my first stove topper tomorrow.

 

[Pedro Ivo Dantas]

Cheer guys, this is Pedro from Brazil. I recently found out about Ubrew and got quite curious about their model, it seems like something that could really work in big urban centers, where space to store equipment could be a problem (and it does seem to have worked for them, as their crowdfunding was over-subscribed).
I've tried to reach them to try to get some more specifics on their operation but wasn't successful - no replies by either phone or email or facebook page. Visiting London right now not being an option, maybe you could help me with some info, if it's not too much of a bother?
- I was under the impression that when you sign up for a membership you got a fermenter and then could use their brewhouse as often as you'd like - what makes sense, considering that fermentation is really the bottleneck of brewing. This way you also give total freedom to the members - whether you want to brew a couple of light, quick ales a month or a super high gravity brew that will need months of maturation, it's up to you. But from @simon12 and @jceg316 interaction in this thread it seems that you're able to brew as much as I'd like, what seems kinda crazy to me. I mean, how do they make sure they don't run out of available fermenters, and how do they stop someone from monopolizing the equipment?
- also I understand from a video on them that I saw in youtube that after brewing is done you put the fermenter in a walking-in cold room. I was wondering if there's also a maturation room? And what about a room for fermenting lagers? Or they just assume that no one is brewing lagers?
- what's a typical brewing there looks like? I mean, you brew your beer and then put it in the cold room to ferment. Then what? Do they follow the beer in any way, taking measurements and sending them to you, or it's totally up to each member? After active fermentation is done, do they move it to maturation, purge the yeast?

Thanks a lot for any info!

Pedro Dantas

 

[Sadfield]

uBrew are not good, I used to work there and hated it, partly because their systems were really badly setup and I had no idea why people paid that much money for it. From afar it looks great - 3 vessel stainless steel system - but there is a lot they haven't thought about, like how to transfer liquids from one 50L vessel to another. This means there is a lot of very heavy lifting trying to get the kettle higher than the mash tun, or lowering the mash tun etc. I've also noticed my bosses giving not great advice to customers.

I've had a friend who went on uBrew not knowing any of this, he gave me really bad feedback about them. They made a saison run by someone from uBrew, they didn't really give them much attention and the beer came out bad. uBrew eventually gave them a refund.

That £95 can get you a stove toppers kit and many brews for it, which I'd recommend if you're pushed for space. Stove toppers are 5 litre setups, it's pretty easy to make a small mash tun and then get a 10 litre pot for a kettle. I think there are instructions for converting pots to kettles on here.

Interesting to hear from the inside. They heavily spammed our homebrew club and members through twitter, with talk of opening a Manchester branch, which never materialised. The odd thing was there line of approach, in denigrating brewing at home to a bunch of homebrewers in a club. Apparently it's lonely, dirty and we have no help if things go wrong.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

 

[jceg316]

Cheer guys, this is Pedro from Brazil. I recently found out about Ubrew and got quite curious about their model, it seems like something that could really work in big urban centers, where space to store equipment could be a problem (and it does seem to have worked for them, as their crowdfunding was over-subscribed).
I've tried to reach them to try to get some more specifics on their operation but wasn't successful - no replies by either phone or email or facebook page. Visiting London right now not being an option, maybe you could help me with some info, if it's not too much of a bother?
- I was under the impression that when you sign up for a membership you got a fermenter and then could use their brewhouse as often as you'd like - what makes sense, considering that fermentation is really the bottleneck of brewing. This way you also give total freedom to the members - whether you want to brew a couple of light, quick ales a month or a super high gravity brew that will need months of maturation, it's up to you. But from @simon12 and @jceg316 interaction in this thread it seems that you're able to brew as much as I'd like, what seems kinda crazy to me. I mean, how do they make sure they don't run out of available fermenters, and how do they stop someone from monopolizing the equipment?
- also I understand from a video on them that I saw in youtube that after brewing is done you put the fermenter in a walking-in cold room. I was wondering if there's also a maturation room? And what about a room for fermenting lagers? Or they just assume that no one is brewing lagers?
- what's a typical brewing there looks like? I mean, you brew your beer and then put it in the cold room to ferment. Then what? Do they follow the beer in any way, taking measurements and sending them to you, or it's totally up to each member? After active fermentation is done, do they move it to maturation, purge the yeast?

Thanks a lot for any info!

Pedro Dantas

You pay a monthly membership and can brew as much as you like. They had a lot of fermenters and as far as I remember they never ran out. Members had to book in advance so they probably knew how many FVs would be needed and could order more if necessary. You also pay for all ingredients, including any bottling sugar and new bottles used. Of course they would tell members to throw away yeast as it can't be used again, no one would really reuse bottles.

Ubrew might be worth it if you brew with a couple of friends on a regular basis - once a week or so. Their kits brew to 30 litres which is kind of a lot for one person, considering all tuns are on one level and you need to move them onto different levels whilst filled with very hot wort and/or grains.

I would recommend setting up a 5 litre system which can be stored in a flat and used on a hob. It's small so brewdays are relatively quick, makes slightly less mess, and takes up a lot less space. It's possible to buy custom made ingredients kits from Geterbrewed and IIRC Malt Miller, so there's no need to store large sacks of grain or have hops take up freezer space (just buy 2 or 3 kits at a time). This way will be far more rewarding, cheaper and you'll probably learn more as well.

 

[jceg316]

Interesting to hear from the inside. They heavily spammed our homebrew club and members through twitter, with talk of opening a Manchester branch, which never materialised. The odd thing was there line of approach, in denigrating brewing at home to a bunch of homebrewers in a club. Apparently it's lonely, dirty and we have no help if things go wrong.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

That makes me laugh so much because of how wrong it is on multiple levels. One reason I really like home brewing is because of how helpful and supportive the community is to each other. Even speaking to commercial brewers they are happy to help where they can (just short of giving away secret recipes). Trust Ubrew to say the opposite.

 

[Pedro Ivo Dantas]

You pay a monthly membership and can brew as much as you like. They had a lot of fermenters and as far as I remember they never ran out. Members had to book in advance so they probably knew how many FVs would be needed and could order more if necessary. You also pay for all ingredients, including any bottling sugar and new bottles used. Of course they would tell members to throw away yeast as it can't be used again, no one would really reuse bottles.

Ubrew might be worth it if you brew with a couple of friends on a regular basis - once a week or so. Their kits brew to 30 litres which is kind of a lot for one person, considering all tuns are on one level and you need to move them onto different levels whilst filled with very hot wort and/or grains.

I would recommend setting up a 5 litre system which can be stored in a flat and used on a hob. It's small so brewdays are relatively quick, makes slightly less mess, and takes up a lot less space. It's possible to buy custom made ingredients kits from Geterbrewed and IIRC Malt Miller, so there's no need to store large sacks of grain or have hops take up freezer space (just buy 2 or 3 kits at a time). This way will be far more rewarding, cheaper and you'll probably learn more as well.

Thanks for the reply!

Actually I do believe the ubrew model could work. I've recently moved and had to sell all my equipment, which made me realize how much I had invested over the years. Now I want to brew again, but don't want to have to buy everything again - that's when I started thinking how nice it would be to have a place with all the necessary equipment which I could use for a fee.
Also, I think a place like this should and could add more value for it's members, for example by having courses, workshops, and overall homebrewing expertise available - the kind of thing you say there wasn't at ubrew, which is their fault, but I believe it's not a problem of the model. Not trying to convince people by any means that they shouldn't brew at home, but rather offering an alternative that could be enticing to some.
I believe that a place such as this could also foster a stronger homebrewing community. Maybe in London the community is so developed that you have other places that fill this gap - I know that in Rio, where I lived, there were brewing clubs that worked as this, but in Lison, Portugal, where I am now, there isn't any. Eventually, the place would turn into a gathering place for homebrewers - a place where you know you'd find likeminded people, where you could trade experience and eventually make some friends.
But returning to Ubrew, do they have a maturation room or anything that works in that regard?

 

[jceg316]

Thanks for the reply!

Actually I do believe the ubrew model could work. I've recently moved and had to sell all my equipment, which made me realize how much I had invested over the years. Now I want to brew again, but don't want to have to buy everything again - that's when I started thinking how nice it would be to have a place with all the necessary equipment which I could use for a fee.
Also, I think a place like this should and could add more value for it's members, for example by having courses, workshops, and overall homebrewing expertise available - the kind of thing you say there wasn't at ubrew, which is their fault, but I believe it's not a problem of the model. Not trying to convince people by any means that they shouldn't brew at home, but rather offering an alternative that could be enticing to some.
I believe that a place such as this could also foster a stronger homebrewing community. Maybe in London the community is so developed that you have other places that fill this gap - I know that in Rio, where I lived, there were brewing clubs that worked as this, but in Lison, Portugal, where I am now, there isn't any. Eventually, the place would turn into a gathering place for homebrewers - a place where you know you'd find likeminded people, where you could trade experience and eventually make some friends.
But returning to Ubrew, do they have a maturation room or anything that works in that regard?

Completely agree, I think a "homebrew centre" type model would be great, but Ubrew fail in a few areas. I have worked in a homebrew shop/brew school which was way more fun. I made friends with the other teachers and students, we would have regular beers and meet up to brew a beer together at the school. Sadly the founders shut the place down as they disagreed on direction.

They have a giant storage room held at 20 degrees (+/-1) where all fermenting beers were kept. Other than that there were no cold storage rooms/lagering rooms/cold crashing rooms. When I was there there was talk of building a cold room for lagering but I don't think it went beyond talk.

I really like Lisbon, it's a great city but the beer scene is a bit behind compared to other European cities, probably because brewing was illegal in Portugal for a long time. (You probably know much more about this than I do!) Anyway, when I get attached to city I start looking into living there, and part of that is looking up homebrew supply shops. There wasn't much in the way of homebrew shops there. I think I found one but didn't have many supplies. How easy is it to order supplies from Belgium or Germany?

 

[Pedro Ivo Dantas]

You're totally right, the beer scene here in Portgual is behind even when compared to Brazil! Which, on the other hand, means opportunities, hence my interest in the subject :) That said, it's getting easier and easier to find nice local brews, and it seems like every other week there's a new brewery debuting.
Right now there's only one homebrew supply shop in Lisbon, and it's not that great, to say the least - it's run as a side business to a nanobrewery, and clearly their focus is in making their own beers. There's a bigger, better run shop in Porto, Portugal's second city, but most homebrewers here order they stuff through the internet, mostly from Spain or the UK, it seems. It works, but I remember how the homebrewing scene in Rio only really exploded once we had local homebrewing stores - beforehand (that was 10+ years ago) we had to order from the south of the country, where homebrewing was more common thanks to german migration - because these stores end up functioning not only to sell stuff but as, like you said, "homebrew centers".
I'm surprised that Ubrew doesn't have a lagering nor a cold crash room. I guess that puts a limit on the quality of the beer that the members can brew. I expected their operation to be more complex, but it seems pretty simple.
And what about follow up to the beer once brewed, do they do any? I think you could do something like regular gravity readings to send to the brewers so they can follow how the fermentation is going. Apart from the basic homebrewing course, do they offer any other kind of training?

 

[jceg316]

You're totally right, the beer scene here in Portgual is behind even when compared to Brazil! Which, on the other hand, means opportunities, hence my interest in the subject :) That said, it's getting easier and easier to find nice local brews, and it seems like every other week there's a new brewery debuting.
Right now there's only one homebrew supply shop in Lisbon, and it's not that great, to say the least - it's run as a side business to a nanobrewery, and clearly their focus is in making their own beers. There's a bigger, better run shop in Porto, Portugal's second city, but most homebrewers here order they stuff through the internet, mostly from Spain or the UK, it seems. It works, but I remember how the homebrewing scene in Rio only really exploded once we had local homebrewing stores - beforehand (that was 10+ years ago) we had to order from the south of the country, where homebrewing was more common thanks to german migration - because these stores end up functioning not only to sell stuff but as, like you said, "homebrew centers".
I'm surprised that Ubrew doesn't have a lagering nor a cold crash room. I guess that puts a limit on the quality of the beer that the members can brew. I expected their operation to be more complex, but it seems pretty simple.
And what about follow up to the beer once brewed, do they do any? I think you could do something like regular gravity readings to send to the brewers so they can follow how the fermentation is going. Apart from the basic homebrewing course, do they offer any other kind of training?

Ah, sorry I missed that bit. No they don't monitor your beer or do anything post pitching for you. There was one case where, for some reason or other, a woman couldn't pitch the yeast on brewday so they made an exception for her and pitched the yeast the next day. If you want to take a gravity reading then you need to come in and do it, if you want to dry hop you need to come in and put the hops in the FV etc. They do have a good bottling machine and capper though. I hate bottling at home but their equipment makes it a breeze. Probably what I enjoyed most about working there: they had a microbrewery type bottle filler which worked effortlessly and quickly.

I think the homebrew course is all they offer. If you turn up and say you'd like some help I'm sure they'd help out where needed. Are you looking for a homebrew course in London? I know of one in Brixton, but never been so can't say whether it's good or not, and I know a guy who runs a homebrew club called Beer Boars, I think he does a homebrew class too. He used to run the place I worked at which was good.

Whilst I don't like Ubrew, I will say I left there around Feb 2016. This was a while ago so some of this could have changed, but from the sound of it I doubt it has.

When I was in Lisbon I went to Cerveteca Lisboa and spoke to the woman behind the bar, she was really into homebrewing and think she mentioned she was part of a club. It seemed if you're into brewing and beer there is a scene for it. How easy would it be to work with that nanobrewery or a craft beer restaurant to have a "public brewday" where you make a homebrew with ~8 paying guests? You show them how to brew, during downtime they sample beers and you can talk beer history with them.

I just did a search for Lisbon craft beer, there are a lot more places than when I looked back in 2015 (I think I only found 2 or 3 places). I'd love to go back, just have to convince the wife. Porto looks like great place as well.

 

[Pedro Ivo Dantas]

Yeah, bottling at home is indeed a pain in the ass. I was so happy when a few years ago I finally made my mind to buy some kegs so I mostly wouldn't have to bottle anymore.
I'm not looking for any courses right now, specially not in London. Like I said, I'm thinking about setting something in the lines of Ubrew up here in Lisbon, and the educational side is something I'd like to develop more - specially given that the offering of brewing education is very weak here. I'm actually currently talking to a nanobrewery here to set up a brewing course using their equipment, but at the same time I'm thinking about setting up my own place.
I've been to Cerveteca a few times but don't know about any brewing clubs. I guess I'll have to go back and talk to the guys there. I've joined a couple of portuguese brewing groups in facebook and there's some movement but it's still very incipient.
If you're ever back in Lisbon and would like company to visit some local pubs, send me a message. I'd love to know more about your experience at Ubrew, and there are indeed quite a few new portuguese breweries to try - just last week there was a big (for local standards) beer festival with breweries from all over the country.
Cheers!

 

[jceg316]

Best of luck setting up the brewing course, do keep us updated with how it goes.

I will definitely be back one day, although not too soon sadly. When I am I will be in touch, already looking forward to my craft beer tour!