PicoBrew announced the release of PicoStill, a patent-pending, small-batch distilling device that is designed to work with all of the company’s countertop brewing appliances. Topped with a copper distilling coil that fits over the Pico C Keg, the machine can be used to distill hop oil, water and essential oils, the company says. Until now, hop oils had not been available in smaller quantities for producers who brew small batches of beer. “The PicoStill not only empowers small-batch brewers to create ingredients like hop oil and essential oils more easily than ever before, but it also gives them the most precise and safest technology to do it with,” PicoStill Chief Executive Officer Bill Mitchell said in a statement.
Just in time for summer, Heineken USA’s Strongbow Hard Apple Ciders put a stake in the ground to make green space more accessible to nature-starved New Yorkers, the company says. The brand’s global Nature Remix campaign was created to bring nature back into cities and includes a partnership with Swale, New York’s first floating food forest, which aims to make fresh, edible perennial plants available to New Yorkers via Manhattan waterways. On May 3, from Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Strongbow kicked off its national seed initiative, where 150,000 seed coasters, containing an estimated 1.5 million basil and sage seeds, were offered to people to encourage and inspire container gardening.