Why are the all-grain kits called Nimbus?

It started on a dark and stormy December evening… I had just got fast internet (ISDN) and used some of the Christmas holidays to surf American websites about beer brewing. Here was an opportunity to combine my interest in beer with my other great passion; engineering. I wanted to make a machine where you put raw ingredients in one end and got finished beer out of the other. It was to be called ‘The Beer Wizard’.

Started drawing a bit and a working sketch quickly emerged. A RIMS was the starting point, but wanted to start a bit simpler.
Finally, the day came for testing the equipment, a 40-litre stainless steel barrel for honey fitted with a 2 kW spiral heating element, digital temperature controller, pump for recirculation, solenoid valves for flow control, a control panel with switches, a mesh strainer insert, and a copper chiller.

It managed to mash and boil, but the mash tun valves were a real bother and very difficult to clean. So, a do-over...

The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle was now applied, so a preserving pan with a mechanical thermostat became the heart of the system. It was fitted with a stainless steel ball valve with a threaded filter (bottom filter) and a push-in fitting for connecting a pump or counter-flow cooler, a sieve with a stainless steel mesh at the bottom, insulation for the pan, and a simple tap for raising the sieve. IT WORKED!
What shall the child be called? At this point, Harry Potter was a huge hit with both me and the kids, so the inspiration came from there. The Beer Wizard became Nimbus, Harry Potter's first broom, which was a good start for learning the subject, and a later version could then suitably be called Prestissimo…
The Nimbus brewing systems were the first affordable brewing systems in Denmark, and since then, more than a thousand systems have been produced. It can be mentioned that a certain Mikkel Bjergsø bought system no. 2, and many other known and unknown brewers started with this system. It was even shown on the evening show on DR at the time.
After more and more purchases of the brewing equipment, the question came up again and again; Don't you have a recipe? This led to me creating some kits with all the ingredients (all-grain kits) for 25 litres and naming them Nimbus + the beer type, as they were suitable for the brewing equipment of the same name. The intention was for it to be easy to get started, and people would then create their own recipes, but many have stuck with the kits…

That was the short version of why the all-grain kits are called Nimbus xxxx…

For the sake of good order, it should be added that Nimbus kits can, of course, be used in all brewing systems that can handle 25 litres and that new kits are continuously being added.

Happy brewing!