Tech Eye: Worshiping ale that's right and good

This is true in the "ha-ha" sense, of course - it's a law of nature, after all, that hilarity ensues any time a rabbi, a priest and an imam go anywhere together. But it's also true in the head-scratching sense. After all, it seems rather unsporting to go around murdering people just because they envision the hereafter differently, yet humankind has been doing this for thousands of years.

Modernity has brought some (limited) relief from this, thankfully. People can murderlessly worship at the altar of whichever faith they choose, be it a long-established religion or a godless affair like science. For better or worse, people can worship money or beauty or food or artificial tanning. There are even some strange souls (Canadians, mostly), who worship Yoda (of Star Wars fame), which is a little creepy and a lot pathetic.

Techeye's brand of piety is fairly self-evident - technology, technology, technology. Less well documented is our faith in the healing power of beer. Drink it, cook with it, bathe in it - beer can soothe all ailments. So strong is our appreciation of the foamy goddess that we're moved to craft odes to her beauty:

There once was a man greatly swollen
Who feared that his beer would be stolen
So he stowed it away
But forgot where it lay
'Til later it ruptured his colon

As you can see, our feelings for beer are no joke. So when beer and tech - our mistress and master - come together, it's like Christmas, Guy Fawkes and Canada Day all rolled up in one shiny package.

Enter the BeerTender, Heineken's "ultimate at home draught beer experience." This gadget was allegedly inspired by "the simple pleasure of serving the perfect glass of draught beer," a worthy inspiration if ever we heard one.

The BeerTender only works with Heineken's line of "DraughtKeg" products, which is a little disappointing but hopefully they'll start selling DraughtKegs of He'brew: The Chosen Beer sometime soon. Each keg comes with a CO2 cartridge which, from what we've gathered, contains the magic of the in-pub draught beer experience.

Like all the best gadgets, the BeerTender has not been without controversy. Heineken originally began working on the project with Philips, but that cooperation ended before the BeerTender was fully developed. Later Philips and InBev developed the PerfectDraft in-home beer tap system, leading Heineken to file a patent infringement suit which it lost in December 2005. This year in January, however, the three firms settled up and, although the terms of the settlement weren't officially disclosed, we heard that Philips' management board had to jog naked around Heineken's headquarters.

The BeerTender is available in several European markets and, depending on the model, will run you between €249-299 (zł.852-1,020).