You know we love a good “first”. (See also: “Est in 1985.”)
Dock Street Brewing Co. has brewed the first drone assisted beer with our next-door neighbors at Exyn Technologies here in Point Breeze. (Yeah, we happen to be neighbors with drones.) The first people we met when we signed for our new digs were the folks at Exyn, and within a few minutes of meeting we joked about a drone-made beer - and then after the chuckles subsided, we got serious about a drone-made beer. We went home that day with a new location site and an idea for our first experimental brew at Dock Street South.
The Exyn team (drone in tow) road-tripped over to do a prototype at Dock Street West, our West Philly location, almost a year before opening Dock Street South, so we were ready to go with a concept and vision as soon as we got the new brewery set up. A few more visits from our friendly neighborhood drones - to capture imagery of the brewery for the can label, to measure the clearance above the tanks, to get familiar with the weight of hops, and to just generally make us beer folks giddy at the sound of the propellers firing up - and we were ready to go, with Exyn A3R assuming the role of Assistant Brewer on Dock Street Swarm Intelligence Pale Ale.
So, could this possibly benefit or change the way beer is brewed? Humans are doing just fine on their own, and when they’re not, there’s always automation. But, drones can improve on automation.
Drones are way more agile, flexible (in terms of what they can do - since they are autonomous, they can take on a variety of tasks unlike a piece of brewing equipment that was designed to do one thing, one way and if it breaks it breaks. Drones are more intuitive and able to be programmed and re-programmed in a way that is much more amenable to trouble-shooting, and are able to be used for multiple tasks. They're smaller and more portable (breweries are also getting smaller and more portable, as nano-breweries and homebrewing are more and more ubiquitous). They're more cost effective than automated brewing tanks, too, which are pretty much only used by the largest breweries.
RENATA CERTO-WARE, DOCK STREET BREWING CO.
Here’s a video of The World’s First Autonomous Brewing Drone
To further describe what you're seeing in the video, the drone is dropping hops into the tank. The folks at Exyn had to engineer a way for a drone to not only carry something, but also release it, which is not typical for their drones (they are mostly used for surveillance/imagery and data acquisition and are very lightweight). It might not seem like much, but to turn a drone into a delivering robot took a lot of finesse and figuring out. To add to the challenge, there wasn't enough clearance above the tanks because of some chains and pipes, so they designed a chute/slide so the drone could get close but not right on top of the tank but still deliver hops.
Dock Street Swarm Intelligence
4.9% ABV 40 IBUs
Pale Ale - Brewed in collaboration with our human and non-human neighbors at Exyn Technologies. A simple grain bill paired with local orange blossom honey makes for a light, floral, and slightly biscuity base. Repeatedly hopped with small bursts of Ekuanot and Chinook throughout the boil, and dry hopped with Ekuanot, Mosaic, and Chinook. The can label art is a multispectral photo of the brewery at Dock Street South, shot by “Exyn A3R.”
Dock Street has always been motivated by innovation and being ahead of the curve - we started our craft brewery in 1985, well before the microbrewery revolution hit the rest of the country. The way we see it, it's only a matter of time before drones will be everywhere in every sector, but this is the first known collab where a drone has actively contributed to the brew process.
The new brew will be released on Tuesday, January 28th.
About Exyn Technologies
Exyn Technologies is pioneering autonomous aerial robot systems for complex, GPS-denied environments. The company’s full-stack solution enables flexible deployment of single or multi-robots that can intelligently navigate and dynamically adapt to complex environments in real-time. For the first time, industries like mining, logistics, and construction can benefit from a single, integrated solution to capture critical and time-sensitive data in a safer, more affordable, and more efficient way. Exyn is powered by a team of experts in autonomous systems, robotics, and industrial engineering, and is a spin-off of Penn’s world-renowned GRASP Laboratory. The company is VC-backed and privately held, with headquarters in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit www.exyn.com.
About Dock Street Brewing Co.
Dock Street Brewing Company was founded in 1985, amidst a proverbial sea of watered down and adjunct-plagued lagers, as one of the first post-prohibition craft breweries in the country - and Philly’s first all-grain brewpub. With three locations in Philadelphia - Dock Street West, Dock Street Cannery and Dock Street South - they're known for their fearless, experimental beers like Dock Street Walker (brewed with goat brains in honor of their favorite show, The Walking Dead), and this Drone-assisted beer with Exyn as well as for staples like Dock Street Bohemian Pilsner or Dock Street Prince Myshkin Russian Imperial Stout, one of the highest rated beers out there.
Mark Russell, Head Brewer at Dock Street; Nader Elm, Exyn CEO; Peter Furlong, Exyn Mechatronics Engineer; Denise Wong, Exyn Robotics Engineer; Renata Certo-Ware, Dock Street Marketing and Events
Mark Russell and Denise Wong readying some human fuel as the drone gets powered up.
Nader Elm, Peter Furlong, and Denise Wong of Exyn.