The Examiner:

I think it is safe to say that all of us have either gone in ourselves or have had friends that have gone into a coffee store and ordered that very long sounding drink that we could never remember or everybody around us thinks we are crazy for ordering. Well in the not so distant future, we may be doing that at our local choice of beer consumption area. A product and development firm called Cambridge Consultants has come up with new machine to adjust the hops level of your beer.

In what the company is calling an 'espresso' of beer, Cambridge Consultants has taken the beer brewing and dry-hopping process ( a process that is estimated to take a few weeks) and made it so that the customer can change flavors by the pint.

There are a number of traditionalists in the beer brewing process that are saying that what the company is doing is not actually possible; however, science has brought us things that we have never thought possible and even though to some it would seem like radically crazy changes . I think they would be welcome within the beer consuming world.

Cambridge Consultants have basically taken espresso machines and modified them into a quickly dry-hopper machine and then they take extra hops at the time of pouring to help with the flavor profile of the beer. You will of course still need to use different hops for different beers.

The new machine to which they are calling 'Hoppier' is going to be demonstrated by Cambridge Consultants this December on the second and third of the month at the Millennium Glocester Hotel London Kensington during the Third annual Canadean Alcohol Innovation Congress.

Edward Brunner, who is the head of food and beverage systems at Cambridge Consultants does divulge a little about the science that is going on when he said:

"We knew, that pressure is fundamental to extracting flavour in espresso machines - so part of our investigation was to see whether it does anything for beer."

The machine does all ready have attachments that can be fitted onto it, so that flavours such as a certain spice or your favorite fruit can be infused into you newly customized pint of beer. Science has been known to be wrong before in the alcohol world or we are waiting to see if some new products actually work.

We saw a few years ago instant barrel like aging of alcohol, which science said was going to change the face of brewing, it of course is barely even remembered. We see rubber corks in our wines today, however, we still do not know the outcomes of what it will do too our expensive wines that are being aged. We will not know that for many years to come.

I am sure that you will find many traditional beer makers that will fight this process and argue that they are simply cheapening the process of beer. You are also going to find many innovators that will tell you that in a new age of technology that anything is possible. One thing that is for sure that everybody in the beer world should be watching this new product, because if it works it should change the face of breweries everywhere.