When I tell people about a new robot, the most common response by far is, "Can it bring me a beer?" The difficulty with this task, though, is that programming a bot to negotiate its way to the kitchen, find the refrigerator, open the fridge door, identify a beer in a can or a bottle, open said beer, then find its way back to its thirsty master is dauntingly complex.

Realizing that the Holy Grail of home robots is the beer-fetching bot, BrewBot LLC has approached this challenge in a new way. What if, instead of fetching a beer, the bot was the brewer?

Enter R.A.L.P.H. (for Robotic Alcohol Lugging/Pouring Helper), which is just a concept device - for now. R.A.L.P.H. contains within its stocky little body an entire steeping, boiling, fermentation, and refrigeration system; all you need to do is keep its charging station stocked with hops, yeast, and water. Via a top-secret proprietary process, new batches of beer can be ready in minutes. (I tried the brew myself; tastes a lot like Milwaukee's Best.)

 R.A.L.P.H. responds to any voice command that includes the word "brewsky," allowing for the user's eventual inability to form complete sentences. When the bot is summoned, it wheels itself over, produces a plastic cup, and emits a stream of beer through its "mouth."

BrewBot's CEO, A.E. Roman, says the company is still looking for backers, but he's quite confident they'll be able to make R.A.L.P.H. a reality. "We think R.A.L.P.H. will be quite popular with college students, particularly in frat houses," he said. "For the females, we're considering a refinement in which R.A.L.P.H. would hold a girl's hair back if she has to, well, you know."