Pinter 3 review

Pinter is a London-based company that set out a few years ago with the mission of putting fresh beer in the hands of wannabe brewers who wanted a simple, reliable way to make ales, lager and other styles of beer at home.

The Pinter 3 is the latest iteration of an all-in-one system that brews 10 pints of beer and then becomes a dispenser, letting your pour those 10 pints from your fridge for up to a month.

You buy beer kits from Pinter which contain everything you need to brew, from the stuff to sanitise the Pinter before brewing to the yeast required for fermentation and – with some kits – hop oil to give your beer an extra kick.

Features & design

• Updated ‘Active Pour’ tap
• Lighter, recycled plastic construction

The Pinter 3 addresses the problems and criticisms of the Pinter 2. One of the main ones was that the tap wasn’t really up to the job. It was designed to solve the original problem of having to open a valve on the back of the Pinter 1 in order to pour a beer, but at the same time letting CO2 escape and leading to ‘flat’ beer if you drunk it over a couple of weeks.

The redesigned tap supposedly allowed beer to be poured at pressure, but that meant you’d end up with a glass full of foam: all head and no beer.

Called the Active Pour tap, this latest design completely solves these issues. Beer no longer shoots out at high pressure, and really does deliver a pub-style beer with the proper head.

The really good news is that if you have a Pinter 2, you can buy this new tap as an upgrade for £29.99.

The Pinter 2 was made from aluminium – as was its dock – but this made it heavy, especially when full of water, and so the Pinter 3 moves back to a plastic body and dock, using partly recycled materials.

The Pinter 3 is really easy to use, and it’s made almost fool-proof thanks to a companion app

It weighs just under 2.5kg, a similar weight to the original, and 45% lighter than the Pinter 2. It certainly makes it easier to lift and shake when it’s time to mix the syrupy malt extract with cold water before adding the yeast.

What hasn’t changed – at least noticeably – is the design of the keg. It’s basically identical to the Pinter 2 but with a rubber strip around it and rubber feet on the back. The contrasting two-tone plastic inside makes it simple to see when you’ve filled it to the correct level, and the tap unscrews for easy cleaning.

On the back is a carbonation dial (effectively a pressure-release valve) and a port for the ‘Hopper’, which is where you add the hop oil after fermentation is finished.

The Pinter 3 is really easy to use, and it’s made almost fool-proof thanks to a companion app. This includes videos that walk you step by step through the cleaning process and then the brewing process.

As long as you follow the instructions to the letter, you will end up with properly fermented beer that tastes good.

At the time of review, the videos hadn’t been updated for the Pinter 3, but the differences are so minor, it didn’t cause any problems.

The app also serves as a calendar and notifies you when it’s time to move to the next stage, and you can choose whether to use the shortest timings, extended times or your own custom timeline.

If you’re new to brewing, you may be tempted to go with shortest, but it’s wise to pick the extended to ensure fermentation has completely finished and to give the beer more time to condition for a better-tasting pint.

There are some negatives. It’s a fairly large unit and doesn’t chill the beer. That means it takes up a lot of space in the average fridge where you’ll need to keep it for at least a week or two for conditioning and, after that, so it’s kept cold and ready to drink. Unless you like warmer beer, you might not be very popular with the rest of your family if it does mean there’s not enough space left for food.

Plus, if your fridge isn’t very deep, you’ll have to place it sideways and move it every time you want to pour a pint. Even if there is enough depth, you’ll probably have to pull it forward so the tap hangs over the edge each time.

The other problem is that you can’t see how much beer’s left. That’s been an issue with every Pinter, though.

Last, but perhaps least relevant, is that the system isn’t designed for bottling. You can bottle the beer, but it’s best to leave it in the keg.

Taste

Whether you use a Pinter 2 or 3, beers will taste the same. And whether you think they are great or not will depend upon what you like from a beer. To test the Pinter 3 I brewed the new Space Hopper: West Coast Edition, a 7% DDH IPA.

Pinter has switched from plastic bottles to pouches, which can’t be recycled. That’s a bit of a step backwards, but the company says they use 84% less packaging material than bottles, and are more environmentally friendly to produce and, because they’re lighter, to ship. It’s working on a recyclable version.

This is one of the beers that comes with a Hopper – a bottle of hop oil. Adding this after fermentation is about as close as you’re going to get to actual dry hopping with a Pinter.

And the beer tastes great. Even after only a week of conditioning (on top of a full week of fermentation), it was virtually ready to drink and had intense bitterness and plenty of citrus. A smell of sulphur indicated that perhaps the yeast hadn’t fully finished its work and a bit more time conditioning was needed.

The beer tastes great

Still, with the new tap, pouring it was a mess-free affair, and carbonation was the best of any beer I’ve brewed in all three Pinters.

Pinter offers a good range of beers, from lager and pilsner to wheat beer and hop-forward IPAs. If you prefer darker beers, there’s a brown ale and Dark Matter, a great-tasting tasting stout that’s more floral and less bitter than, say, Guinness.

Cider drinkers are catered for by a dark fruit option – Waltham Forest –and a stronger apple cider, the Whole Nine Yards. They’re no cheaper than the beers, though, which cost either £17.99 or £19.99.

Only one is more expensive: Pinter’s newest collaboration with Signature Brew: Roadie Remixed, a lower-ABV IPA which costs £22.

All of this means a pint costs between £1.80 and £2.20, not including the cost of the Pinter itself.

Build quality

This review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning quality. Pinter has been under fire because of a few quality issues, ranging from minor to major, with some resulting in lost brews and ruined carpets.

As with the Pinter 1 and 2, I had no issues at all with the Pinter 3. Admittedly, that is for only one brew and it’s too early to say if there are any problems which will rear their head only in the longer term, such as the ability to retain pressure. Some owners report that their Pinter 2 loses pressure after as few as five brews, though I haven’t had this problem with my unit.

The Pinter 3 keg still, as with the second-gen version, feels a bit wobbly when perched on top of the dock, but there was no leakage at all while moving it from room to room or while fermenting.

It’s much easier than the original dock to fit and remove, and the only time things get messy is when you remove it after brewing. Do that in a kitchen sink and that mess is contained, though.

The new tap has no elastic retaining strap, nor a locking mechanism. Yet I had no issues there either: it didn’t leak (save for a few drips after pouring a pint) and is easy to remove and refit: it just clips on.

The only slight problem I encountered was when using the Hopper bottle. The hop oil didn’t want to drain into the Pinter 3 at first, but did eventually, possibly because of the pressure inside the keg.

As any brewer will tell you, cleanliness is one of the most important rules and if you keep your Pinter clean after brewing and use the included sodium percarbonate to clean and “purify” it before the next brew, you should have no problems.

The process is very simple, too, not least because the app walks you through washing everything once the beer’s drunk but also just before you do your next brew.

Though you won’t find them in the app there are various tips on Pinter’s website for things you can do to make your beer even better. Beyond longer fermentation and conditioning times, you can ‘cold crash’ beer in the fridge before removing the dock to remove more of the yeast for better clarity, and you can rehydrate the dried yeast in tepid water instead of emptying the packet straight into the Pinter.

There’s a forum on Pinter’s website, as well as unofficial groups such as The Pinter on Facebook where you can pick up more tips.

Price & availability

The Pinter 3 is sold only in the UK. It comes in blue, grey and red and costs £99 direct from Pinter.

You’re prompted to choose a beer which will either cost you the normal price, or you can choose to subscribe to the Fresh Beer Club which means you get the first one free, then each subsequent one costs £16.99 with free delivery. You can cancel the subscription whenever you like.

If you plan to brew regularly, it can be worth buying a Co-Pinter for £69.99. This is just the Pinter keg without the dock, and it means you can have one beer on tap while brewing the next.

Verdict

The third time really is the charm: the Pinter 3 fixes its predecessor’s problems and is easier to handle because it’s so much lighter.

It’s certainly capable of making great beer you’ll actually want to drink and if you sign up for the Fresh Beer Club, pints are pretty reasonable at £1.70.

The device itself is relatively pricey for what it is, but at least it’s cheaper than the Pinter 2.

However, you shouldn’t buy the Pinter as a money-saving exercise: it’s much more of a hobby than a way of getting cheaper beer.