iGulu F1 First Impressions After My First Brew – More Than Just a Beer Machine?

Disclosure: iGulu provided the F1 Smart Home Brewing Machine for review. However, all opinions in this article are based on my own experience using the machine. iGulu has not reviewed or approved this content before publication. I am currently in contact with the company to clarify some items and I am still testing and using the machine. 

As someone who already owns a Pinter and enjoys brewing beer at home, I was curious when iGulu offered to send me its F1 Smart Home Brewing Machine to try.

At around £699, the iGulu F1 isn’t a casual purchase. It’s considerably more expensive than most beginner home brewing systems, which immediately raises an important question:

Is this really a brewing machine, or is it a compact home bar that just happens to brew beer?

After completing my first brew – the iGulu Pale Ale Ingredient Kit – I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

This isn’t a full review. Think of it as a first impressions piece based on my first brew, my first experience with the app, and my first few weeks living with the machine.

There are things I already like a lot. There are a few frustrations. And there are still some questions I need answered before I reach a final verdict.

First impressions

The first thing that struck me was how good the machine looks.

Most home brewing equipment isn’t designed with aesthetics in mind. Plastic fermenters, pressure barrels and assorted tubing tend to end up hidden away in garages and utility rooms.

The iGulu F1 is different.

It looks more like a premium kitchen appliance or compact home bar than a piece of brewing equipment.

In fact, my wife immediately commented that it looked far more acceptable sitting in the house than most of the brewing gear I’ve accumulated over the years.

I’ve placed it next to my Subcold countertop beer fridge in the utility room.

That might sound like a small thing, but at £699 it matters. If you’re paying that sort of money, you want something that earns its place on a kitchen counter.

The machine feels well built, the touchscreen looks modern, and the integrated tap immediately gives it a premium feel.

The tap is a standard fitting, so can unscrew and attach other beer taps easily to customise your machine.

Brewing my first beer

For my first brew I chose the iGulu Pale Ale Ingredient Kit.

According to iGulu, the kit is inspired by one of Britain’s most influential beer styles and promises a balanced malt backbone, lively hop character and a clean, refreshing finish.

I do like English Pale Ales, and these are usually the most common style you see for real ale.

 

The brewing process itself was remarkably straightforward. I am not an experienced home brewer, having only previously used the Pinter to make some beer.

The kit contains pre-measured ingredients including malt extract, hop extract, brewing sugars and yeast, making it accessible even if you’ve never brewed before.

Basic process:

• After cleaning the equipment (place in the barrel and shake!). You can then start.
• You fill the supplied keg with purified room temperature water, filling to the fill line. Then you can put in all the ingredients from the kit.
• I then mixed by putting the lid on (with dispensing tube) and ensuring I gave it all a good shake for around 30 seconds.
• Place into the iGulu F1 and connect the CO2 bottle (blue sodastream bottle).
• Pull the tap and insert the tube, which can then be connected to the brewing vessel.

Usually, you scan the RFID sticker on the side of the machine (on the G of the logo), but I was initially having some issues getting this to work and navigating the touchscreen.

Instead, I selected an ‘Ale 3 stage’ using the screen and set it up to ferment.

The machine’s brewing chamber holds around one US gallon of beer, approximately 3.8 litres, within its overall 5 litre capacity.

That won’t replace a large home brewing setup, but it makes experimentation far less intimidating.

If a brew doesn’t turn out perfectly, you’re not pouring away a huge batch. I did really like the convenience of pouring a crisp cold beer from the machine, especially as it has been quite toasty here in the UK recently.

The temperature range the machine can produce is excellent, from 2 degrees C to 40! This is important for controlling the brewing process and cold crashing / conditioning of the beer.

After this it’s then important to ensure all the equipment is cleaned up. The spout can be removed to be cleaned to at the same time as the tubes and the brewing vessel.

A firmware update made a difference

My first few days weren’t completely smooth with the device.

During the initial brew, the app occasionally reported the machine as offline and the touchscreen appeared to freeze. At one point the brewing countdown remained stuck for an extended period, making me wonder whether the machine was still working properly.

I had to keep turning it on and off again for it to provide the right information. I found there was a firmware update needed during this time, but I was not able to download, likely due to signal strength.

Before the next brew I decided to try the update again. After moving the unit closer to my router and installing the latest firmware update, things improved considerably.

Since updating, the touchscreen has remained responsive and the machine has behaved much more reliably.

My suspicion is that the machine arrived with older firmware installed and was simply overdue an update.

If you buy an iGulu F1, updating the firmware should be the first thing you do!

The app

The app works.

That’s the good news.

The less good news is that it feels like it could benefit enormously from a dedicated UX designer and a native English copywriter.

Nothing is especially difficult to understand, but it lacks some of the polish and personality found in competing brewing apps.

Compared with the Pinter app, which does a good job of guiding users through the brewing journey, the iGulu app feels more functional than engaging.

The hardware currently feels more mature than the software.

Fortunately, software can improve with updates.

How was the beer?

The honest answer?

Better than I expected.

My first Pale Ale wasn’t perfect. It was slightly cloudy, but that’s hardly surprising. This is an unfiltered home brewed beer with no filtration stage.

What impressed me more was what wasn’t there.

The beer lacked some of the “homebrew tang” I’ve occasionally encountered with beginner brews in other systems.

Serving at around 3°C certainly helped, and the machine’s built-in cooling system performed extremely well, even during a UK heatwave.

The best endorsement came during England’s World Cup match.

A friend joined me to sample the results. Despite having a perfectly good Pilsner Urquell available, he chose a second pint of the iGulu Pale Ale instead.

That probably tells you more than any tasting note I could write.

What makes the iGulu different?

As somebody who owns both an iGulu and a Pinter, I don’t really see them as direct competitors.

The Pinter feels like brewing.

The iGulu feels like owning a compact pub tap that also happens to brew beer.

Its biggest strengths are:

• Built-in cooling
• Pressure fermentation
• Integrated dispensing
• Temperature control
• Countertop-friendly design

The ability to keep beer cold and carbonated after brewing is a genuine advantage. Once conditioned, the beer can remain chilled and ready to dispense for up to 30 days, removing the pressure to drink it quickly.

With the in-built refrigeration and temperature management, with the iGulu F1 I do not need to keep moving Pinters around and place into a fridge.

There’s less pressure to drink everything immediately after fermentation finishes, which makes the experience feel much closer to owning a miniature home bar.

The ingredient kits

The official ingredient kits are convenient and reasonably priced at around £16.99 per batch.

However, one thing that became apparent while brewing is that there doesn’t appear to be anything especially proprietary about the ingredients themselves.

You’re essentially working with:

• Malt extracts
• Brewing sugars
• Hop extracts
• Yeast

For beginners, the official kits are ideal.

Long term, however, I’m interested in exploring whether ingredients could be sourced independently and recipes built from scratch. The kits provide an excellent benchmark and starting point, but they may not be the only route available.

Plus you can come up with your own recipes and brewing schedules using something called ‘Master Mode’. I am not there yet, and will continue with the kits for now to try them out.

Mini keg compatibility

One of the questions I raised with iGulu after my first brew was whether the F1 could be used as a general-purpose countertop dispenser for standard 5 litre mini kegs.

The answer is… partly.

Every iGulu F1 ships with an AT Dispensing Coupler, designed specifically for pressurised 5 litre Heineken-style kegs. These can be placed inside the machine, chilled using the built-in cooling programme and dispensed directly through the integrated tap.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for traditional gravity-fed European mini kegs.

I recently got a Früh Kölsch mini keg which physically fits inside the machine. iGulu confirmed that the compatible AS Dispensing Coupler needed for these kegs is no longer manufactured.

According to the company, the AS coupler led to a number of after-sales issues, including beer backflow into the machine, so production stopped during 2025.

The encouraging part is that iGulu told me its engineering team is actively exploring safer, more user-friendly solutions for broader mini keg compatibility.

That’s good news because I genuinely think the F1 has the potential to become more than simply a home brewing machine. With wider keg support, it could evolve into a compact home bar capable of serving homebrew alongside commercial craft beer.

For now, though, compatibility is limited to Heineken-style pressurised mini kegs using the supplied AT coupler.

In the UK, it seems like Beerwulf have a number of these style kegs available. I will obtain one and test it out!

What’s next?

The Pale Ale was only the beginning.

I’ve now started brewing the Irish Cream Stout kit using the RFID-enabled workflow, which automatically configures the machine’s brewing programme.

The waiting while it is brewing is the hardest part!

After that, I have a Sparkling White Wine kit ready to try which should be interesting.

I’m also keen to explore:

• Custom recipes
• Third-party ingredients
• Mini keg compatibility
• Kombucha
• Mead
• Long-term ownership

The more I use the iGulu, the more it feels like a drinks platform rather than simply a beer machine.

First impressions verdict

After my first brew, I’m impressed.

The iGulu F1 isn’t cheap, but it’s also doing things that most home brewing systems simply don’t attempt.

The cooling works well. The dispensing system is excellent. The machine looks good enough to leave on display. Most importantly, the beer was enjoyable enough that people actually wanted a second pint.

The app still needs work, firmware updates appear essential, and there are questions I still want answered regarding mini keg support.

But based on my first experience, the iGulu F1 feels less like a brewing gadget and more like a personal pub tap that happens to make its own beer.

I am probably the target market for these, as I enjoy the ability to create different types of drinks, as opposed to having something like a Perfect draft machine, which is a dedicated beer dispenser for home use.

s it worth £699? Based on my first few weeks with it, I can certainly see where the money has gone. Whether it represents good value will depend on how much use you make of its brewing, dispensing and temperature control features. I’ll revisit that question in my full review.

It’s a promising start, but I will continue to brew and update here as necessary.

First impressions score: 8/10