I know this post and most of the comments are old, but I thought I’d throw in my two cents and also address the questions about making it in a Nalgene or PET bottle.
I picked up a rack of Pat’s — 8 pouches of each of the beers, including the American Logger that came out after this article was written. I couldn’t find it locally, so I got that many pouches to make the per-pint shipping cost at little less painful (being in Alaska, the only options were UPS and FedEx, which start around $30 on the cheap end, so my cost per pint was considerably higher).
My take on the beer – it was neat as a novelty, and fun to have had one of each of the brews on an outing with friends, made high in the Kenai Mountains with cold filtered (MSR) mountain water. :) I achieved great carbonation with the second batch (pale), but the first (black IPA) and third (lager) were not so great. Preparation/carbonation may have been a factor, but I liked the pale best, followed by the black IPA and then the lager.
That’s not to say I particularly liked them. After having each, I decided that they all tasted like beer-flavored vodka and lacked any body. That was the big issue for me, the total lack of body. The packet should have had the consistency of Gu, but instead it was watery. Beer-flavored vodka is easier to pour into the bottle, yes, but it made the beers in line with a lite lager macrobrew rather than anything appropriate for the style. (The American Logger was appropriate to style in the way, but the pale and IPA were not.)
I will continue to use the pouches until they’re gone. After that, I would either not bring any booze with me (really, I’ve never had the need to do so) or, if I just had to have something, either bring a can of a local (wherever I am) craft beer or booze depending on how long I was going to be out. I doubt I’ll buy the alcoholic pouches again, though I may try the NA flavors or use alternative flavorings. I’d also make my own activator packs to reduce the cost and save on packaging.
On that second point, no, that wouldn’t work, at least not with this system. The issue is that the bottle is four pieces, one of which is a little test tube like thing that holds the activator chemicals. The carbon dioxide from that inner chamber goes into the beer, but the chemicals do not. While both are probably safe to consume alone and after they’ve reacted, they are not intended to be mixed with the beer and would meaningfully change the flavor.
That said, with some other equipment, you could try to force carbonate in a PET bottle. To do this you would need a bottle carbonator cap (with ball lock top), portable ball lock carbonator that uses CO2 cartridges (usually used to dispense from kegs, not force carbonate, but you’d need one with a regulator — important!), and a CO2 canister. The problems are that (a) the CO2 canister could very easily overload (i.e., explode) the bottle if you haven’t spent the money on one with a regulator and (b) the force carbonation, as with Pat’s, will work but not quickly, and it would still not give you carbonation like commercial or homebrewed beer (which would be packaged in a PET bottle and carbonated for the required amount of time with a CO2 tank).
If you find these pouches locally, you might wait to buy the rest of the system until you’ve tried them. Just pick up the pouches and a bottle of club soda, mix, and see if you enjoy.
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