Launch of Kickstarter Campaign to Fund the Most Revolutionary Way to Brew Beer at Home

MUNICH, GERMANY--(Marketwired - Jun 17, 2014) - The German startup Brewbarrel is raising money for a customizable home brewing kit on Kickstarter.com. Brewbarrel is a completely new concept in home brewing, which allows everyone to customize beer online and brew their own beer at home in just one week.

Brewbarrel was developed by three students at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). TUM is home to one of the oldest and most famous departments of brewery sciences. All the Brewbarrel founders met during their studies. Even though they love German beer, they felt it lacked variety. Co-founder and CEO Dominik Guber recalls: "One day, we found ourselves standing in front of the beer shelves of our local supermarket. We asked ourselves why there is so little variety." From there on, they used their knowledge of brewing and natural sciences and went back to the drawing board: "We wanted to create a fast and easy way to brew customized beer at home. Therefore, we had to completely rethink and reinvent the process of home brewing."

They created Brewbarrel after nearly six months of product development. The main innovation is a single-stage brewing process, allowing the beer to be brewed directly in the keg from which the beer will be tapped later on. This reduces all the cleaning effort and keeps the beer fresh and natural. They also created an easy-to-use web interface where anyone can create customized beer in just three simple steps. As co-founder and COO Ping Lu explains: "First, you choose your favorite beer style, then define the hop intensity, and with it, how bitter you like your beer. In a third step, you can refine your beer with up to three different natural flavors."

This approach allows one to create more than 30,000 beer varieties. All the necessary ingredients are pre-weighed and shipped to the customer's order. No additional equipment or preliminary knowledge is required. This means the beer is ready for fermentation in 10 minutes. After just one week, the customized, home-brewed beer is ready for enjoyment and can be tapped fresh from the keg. Other home brewing kits and even most breweries need up to three or four weeks for this process, without offering any possibility of customization whatsoever. Co-founder and CPO Wolfgang Westermeier describes the company's approach: "We love brewing and we love a wide variety in taste. We are very happy to give everyone the chance to easily become a master brewer with Brewbarrel. It has never been easier to craft a beer according to your own desires."

The startup got underway two years ago in Germany and has already sold over 40,000 home brewing kits there. Co-founder Dominik Guber says: "Since launching Brewbarrel, home brewing has become commonplace in Germany." Due to high demand, the startup had never been able to process international requests, until now. Now the startup is raising money on the crowd funding platform kickstarter.com to invest in a new filling line to increase production capacities. If the campaign is a success, they will be able to offer international shipping by the end of the year. Until then, they are offering a variety of exclusive home brewing kits via Kickstarter. Founder Dominik Guber adds: "With great support for our Kickstarter campaign, we will be able to share our passion for customized beer and home brewing with everyone in the world. So please support us by backing our project. Thank you!"

You can find the Brewbarrel kickstarter campaign at: www.mybrewbarrel.com/kickstarter
For ongoing news, please check: www.facebook.com/brewbarrel
www.twitter.com/mybrewbarrel

About the company: Brewbarrel was initially launched as "Braufässchen" in Germany in June 2012. Soon after the launch, it was featured on many TV channels all over Germany and was voted "Best Invention of 2012" by one of the biggest German TV channels (Pro7, Galileo). After this, sales increased exponentially -- and have continued up to the present day. This allowed the company, "Customized Drinks GmbH," to grow to a core team of seven. During peak phases, ten to twelve employees were even involved in the Brewbarrel production. In June 2014, the company moved to a bigger, state-of-the-art production facility in the heart of Munich. Also in June, a fully-owned subsidiary Brewbarrel Inc. was established in Delaware and an office was opened in New York.

Disclaimer
Some of the statements in this press release may be forward-looking statements or statements of future expectations based on currently available information. Such statements are naturally subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors such as the development of general economic conditions, future market conditions, unusual catastrophic loss events, changes in capital markets, and other circumstances may cause actual events or results to be materially different from those anticipated by such statements. Customized Drinks GmbH does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or updated status of such statements. Therefore, in no case whatsoever will Hannover Re and its affiliate companies be liable to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction with the information and/or statements in this press release, or for any related damages.