Hybrid coffee brewers are making a comeback

Key takeaways

• Hybrid coffee brewers, which combine pour over and immersion brewing, are becoming more popular at competitions.
• Four out of nine 2025 World Brewers Cup finalists used hybrid brewers like the Hario Switch.
• They give baristas greater control over extraction and flavour, achieving more clarity and body.
• Hybrid brewers are some of most simple and accessible, but also allow for recipe experimentation.

Hybrid coffee brewers aren’t new. One of the most popular, the Clever Dripper, was released in 2009, and quickly became a fixture of home setups and coffee shop brew bars for its durability and ease of use.

Recently, they have become more popular at competitions. At the 2025 World Brewers Cup Championship (WBrC), four of the top nine competitors used hybrid brewers – highlighting the benefits of combining the two brewing styles.

“You can adjust all the way from true percolation to a full immersion brewer,” says Justin Bull, the co-owner and director of coffee at Helm Coffee in Indianapolis, Indiana, US. Justin is also the 2025 US Brewers Cup Champion, and competed in the world finals using the April Hybrid brewer. 

“This opens up a world of possibilities for compulsory recipes,” he adds. “You can brew concentrates and bypass dilution, and create in-depth multi-pour recipes with varying levels of immersion.”

This reaffirms a broader trend in specialty coffee: baristas and competitors are constantly seeking more control over extraction and flavour. Along with other gadgets and accessories like WDT tools and pour assist devices, hybrid brewers are one of the many ways they can achieve this.

You may also like our article on which brewers and extraction tools baristas are using today.

The benefits of combining pour over and immersion

Pour over and immersion brewing are both widely used brewing techniques, but pour over is often the most favoured. By pouring water over ground coffee in stages, baristas can dial in coffees with greater precision.

Combined with a paper filter, which traps oils and fines, the resulting cup profile is clean and bright. Pour over brewing also lends itself well to highlighting the complexity of coffee, allowing for greater flavour clarity.

Immersion brewing, meanwhile, offers very different results. Because the coffee grounds are fully submerged in water throughout, the extracted coffee has a much more pronounced mouthfeel and less acidity.

“Immersion offers more sweetness, bigger body, and more consistency in extraction,” says Emi Fukahori, the co-founder of MAME in Zurich, Switzerland & KURO MAME in Tokyo, Japan. She is also the 2018 World Brewers Cup champion, where she used the hybrid GINA brewer. “Drip offers more acidity, clarity, and a lighter body.”

In theory, hybrid brewers allow baristas to have the best of both extraction methods. By customising recipes, they can combine the clean, bright flavours of pour over with the fuller-bodied texture of immersion.

“When I was competing back in 2018, I think GINA was the only ceramic hybrid brewer,” Emi says. “Having the ability to combine both drip and immersion with a ceramic brewer, you can experiment with recipes and reproduce the desired results even in limited time or conditions,” she explains. Brewer material plays an important role in heat retention, and ceramic (once preheated) helps stabilise brewing temperature, leading to more consistent results.

“Because you can gain greater control over extraction with hybrid brewers, it’s also easier to adjust other variables, such as type of paper filter, brew recipe, water profile, brew temperature, and grind size.”

Which hybrid brewers are popular?

The Clever Dripper has been a staple of third wave coffee culture for nearly two decades, and a number of other hybrid brewers have appeared on the market. The GINA, Hario Switch, and April brewers are some of the most popular among specialty coffee shops, home baristas, and competitors.

The Hario Switch was one of the most used brewers at the 2025 WBrC finals. Indonesia’s Bayu Prawiro, Colombia’s Carlos Escobar, and Guatemala’s Raul Rodas all used this hybrid brewer. The US’ Justin Bull, however, opted for the April brewer.

Justin’s routine centred on hybrid brewing and hybrid processing (using Gesha from Finca Deborah in Panama, first processed as a carbonic macerated natural and then as a washed) – “the best of both worlds”.

“The more flexible pour structure means you can tailor recipes to fit a variety of processing methods more effectively,” Justin explains. “For example, with natural processed coffees, I can increase contact time during the immersion step to bring out additional sweetness and complexity in the cup.

“You can modulate cups with pour structure, pour height, and add in tools like the Melodrip or Hario drip assist,” he adds. “But now, with the brewers like the Switch or April, you can do all of that, and steeping is an additional variable.

“You’re ultimately looking for the best version of your coffee you can present, and any way to give yourself an advantage in controlling the cup, I believe, can help you. Hybrid brewing offers very balanced cups with good flavour clarity, and layered flavours as the cup cools. It can also create some of the most unique textural cups I’ve ever had.”

How to use hybrid brewers

Emi says the simplicity and consistency that hybrid brewers offer are why MAME uses the Hario Switch.

“We’re really playful with other elements of coffee, so we want the brewer to be simple and consistent, especially because different baristas across our cafés prepare pour over manually,” she explains. “It also allows our guests to easily recreate recipes at home.”

Justin agrees that hybrid brewers are more accessible: “We use them at Helm, a derivative of my USBrC and WBrC recipe, and I think it’s a very easy brewer for people to use. The steep time allows for fewer touch points, more consistent cups, and more ability to interact with customers.”

He offers some general brewing tips for customising recipes: “You can experiment with the number of pours and timing specific multiple steep cycles, but the recipe I have developed is based around a 40:60 methodology. At the beginning of the brew, 40% of your total brew volume will be extracted using percolation. Towards the end, 60% of your total brew volume will be extracted using immersion.

“I like to begin with percolation because most volatile aromatics are released within the first minute of a brew,” he adds. “This traps them in the final cup, whether through a single-pour bloom or a two-pour double bloom.

“After the bloom, between 45 seconds and 1 minute, I switch to immersion and let the coffee steep between 1:45 and 2:15. This is dependent on the coffee, grind size, filter paper, etc. I also pour in the middle of the slurry during the immersion stage, aiding fine migration and enhancing tactile and flavour clarity.”

Hario Switch recipe

James Hoffmann has developed a simple Hario Switch recipe:

• Dose: 15g
• Yield: 250g
• Grind size and water temperature will vary depending on the coffee. James used a medium grind size and 95°C (203°F).

1. Rinse the paper filter (James uses Sibarist, but V60 02 also works), discard the rinse water, and close the valve.
2. Add coffee and pour 30g to 45g of water. Swirl, and then pour the remaining water. 
3. At 2:00, stir the slurry in both directions, and open the switch at 2:15.

Hybrid brewers are accessible, consistent, and forgiving, but also allow for advanced recipe experimentation.

As they become more prominent at competitions, we’ll likely see more hybrid brewers in coffee shops – offering new ways to experience pour over and giving baristas the ability to tweak recipe development.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on why espresso gadgets have become so popular at competitions.

Photo credits: Lorix Tan, Specialty Coffee Association

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