How Do You Combine Your Love For Beer With Your Love For Weather? Ask Ben.

By PubShed founder Ben Wassel

I am the founder of the home bar group Pub Sheds. Pub Sheds arose as a way to bring together like-minded home bar enthusiasts from around the world. With over 18,000 members, we are the world's largest home bar community and host a variety of events and competitions throughout the year, including the popular “Pub Shed of the Year” contest. We have collaborated with many breweries and bar-related companies to review and promote home bar-related products to our members.

My own home bar, “The Barometer,” combines my two very different interests: pub sheds and weather. Based loosely on the interior of an 18th-century sailing ship, the idea was to create a dark, claustrophobic “below decks” feel. Although it is currently undergoing renovation, we hope to complete the bulk of it this summer. Highlights include a lightning flasher to simulate a storm at sea, special effects motors to simulate a swaying deck, a “scent effects” module to spray the scent of rope and tar into the room, and of course, most importantly, home brew on tap!

The outdoor space provided by the home bar provides the ideal location to install our weather monitoring equipment, and taking pride of place is the Davis Vantage Vue station. Being able to monitor weather conditions locally via the console and remotely with the help of the WeatherLinkIP data logger is crucial and provides peace of mind when away from home. In my opinion, it is as important as having a reliable security system installed. Many of our members’ home bars are built inside sheds which can be vulnerable during extreme weather events. Being able to keep an eye on the conditions and be warned by the numerous weather alarms that can be set via the console is crucial. There are also many home brewers in our group and so keeping an eye on the interior temperature and humidity in their brew sheds is also a very useful and practical feature.

Thank you Davis for producing the reliable and functional Vantage Vue - our only wish is that we can get a Vantage Pro2 to go alongside it!

Click here to see a Pub Shed video review of Ben's Vantage Vue and WeatherLinkIP.