After many months of delays for a variety of reasons BrewDemon finally launched it’s product line on December 11th and started accepting orders! This is a bigger deal then you might think since they are basically re-introducing the beloved malts that were abandoned by Mr. Beer when Australia based Coopers bought out the company.

The BrewDemon Malts are produced by Maltexo in New Zealand and are for the most part the same as what was once offered by Mr. Beer. There are however a few changes that make these products unique to The Demon Brewing Company. The obvious change of course is the branding. BrewDemon has renamed all of the malts to give them their unique brand identity. Additionally the basic recipes now come with a can of liquid Brewing Enhancer and gone is the Booster Packet that many Mr. Beer fans where familiar with. The other noticeable difference is the fermenter, that has a vertical conical design!

The BrewDemon claims that theirs is the “world’s first” 2 gallon conical fermenter (patent pending). This is much different then the

little brown keg that many Mr. Beer users are use to. The idea of this conical design stems from professional brewing fermenters that attempt to reduce the amount of contact that the wort has with the trub and spent yeast that can potentially effect the taste of the final beer. BrewDemon claims this new design helps in eliminating the noticeable “twangy” taste that Mr. Beer users experienced when using the old standard keg fermenter. This new conical has about 30% head space when filled with the correct amount of wort which should give plenty of room for the yeast to do it’s work. Another noticeable difference is that this little brown conical (LBC) is lighter in color which makes it easier to see what’s going on inside while still protecting the wort from sunlight. Lastly there is an additional “Bubbler” upgrade that can be purchased that fits right on the top of the LBC.

The Demon Brewing Company is offering 3 different levels of their 2 gallon brewing kits ranging in price between $45 and $65. Each kit comes with everything needed to brew a batch of beer. Each step up from their basic kit added accessories like bottles with caps and a bottle filler with tubing. You can find more details about the different kits on the BrewDemon website.

The yeast that comes with any of the 2 gallon malt recipes (Basic, Basic Plus, & Signature Series) is a standard 2 gram packet of dry brewing yeast that is tucked under the lid of the extract.

As mentioned above BrewDemon has 3 levels of 2 gallon malt recipes. The Basic recipes ($13) include 1 -1.21 lbs can of Hopped Malt Extract (HME), 1-11.3 oz can of Liquid Brewing Enhancer (no more Booster), the yeast packet as mentioned above and a packet of One Step cleanser.

Basic Plus recipes ($15) include the same 1.21 lbs can of malt, yeast and One Step but replace the can of Liquid Brewing Enhancer with a 1.21 lbs can of Un-hopped Malt Extract (UME) which depending on the recipe could be one of the 4 UMEs that are available, Creamy Brown, Golden Wheat, Mellow Amber or Pale Export.

Signature recipes ($19) give you 2 – 1.21 lbs cans of their Signature HMEs along with the same yeast (x2) and One Step.

(To see the entire product line up from BrewDemon check out the Complete BrewDemon Line Up article on this site.)

In addition to the 2 gallon recipes BrewDemon is also offering 6 gallon sizes of their four Signature Series recipes. Each

6 gallon recipe ($49) comes with 2- 3.75 lbs cans of HME, 2-5 gram yeast packets and 3 packets of One Step cleanser. The idea in offering these larger sized recipes is to allow someone that  finds a 2 gallon recipe the option to brew that recipe on a larger scale. More of a good thing!

 

 

 

 

 

To help brewers with these larger recipe offerings Demon Brewing is selling the 6 gallon BrewTec Micro Brew Kit ($95) which, like the 2 gallon BrewDemon kits includes everything needed to start brewing a batch of beer.

There are some things missing from the BrewDemon line up that Mr. Beer had such as the Black Tower Porter and the Grand Bohemian Czech Pilsner but there are no plans to bring these recipes back at this time.

The other thing that the Mr. Beer Fans have missed since the Coopers change have been the Seasonal Recipes. Although seasonal recipes are not yet available BrewDemon does plan to produce seasonal recipes in the future.

 

Lastly the other obvious omission to the brewing line up is the the Cider recipes. BrewDemon will be bringing these back slowly with the introduction of the Forbidden Fruit Hard Cider coming out this year (2013).

BrewDemon does plan to expand their market by getting into retail stores to get a piece of the new-to-brewing market while aggressively going after the Mr. Beer brewers that haven’t been happy with changes brought about by the Coopers take over. No matter how you feel about this new company and  how their products fit into the home brewing market as a whole it’s clear that they are combining tried and true favorite recipes with a new direction to keep customers once they move beyond the smaller 2 gallon brews. Innovation to move the home brew market forward is also a major driving force for this young company.

Soon I will be providing reviews of several of their recipes and also their new 2 gallon fermenter, so please stay tuned for all the info on BrewDemon!

Cheers and keep on brewing!

Leigh

A.K.A. LouieMacGoo

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