The Picobrew definitely has it's place in the world of brewing...... assuming that the results live up to the billing.
Imagine owning a home brew store, and having a line up of 2 or 3 Picobrews in the store.
Your customer opens an account and pays by credit card.......... Sitting around drinking his latest pale ale, blond, cream, barley wine, etc..... with friends, they start wondering what that latest hop variety would do to flavor, perhaps they want it a little sweeter or drier, so they start passing the Ipad around, and design a new version, and push "send" , or perhaps "spend"........... It's billed out and put in your brewing queue. The next day you weigh out and measure ingredients into the hoppers, and push start, and when the process is complete, set the keg aside with their customer number on it. The keg rental clock starts ticking, as the wort is set in the cooler. At this point the customer must drop by, receive the wort, and sign for it. He can take it home to complete the process, or simply pitch the yeast and document that he has, and put it into your temperature controlled fermentation storage room. When the fermentation is complete, you move it into the crash and lager room, and the customer picks it up for bottling or to put in his kegerator.
So long as the customer receives the wort and pitches the yeast, and it is documented, there really is nothing the feds could object to. You aren't selling an alcoholic beverage, just grain, hops, and yeast............
The service could be really valuable to microbrewers for prototyping also. The LHBS has a lot of diverse inventory, and the microbrewer is faced with having to buy the materials for a prototype beer in retail quantities (except base malt). He had just as well dial a brew, as try to do it in his brewery. He might order 6 or 8 variants at a time. It could end up being an excellent business................
H.W.
H.W.