Critique Brew

Your draft, sharpened — without re-writing from scratch.

A Critique Brew is the fastest path from “rough draft” to “sharper draft”. Unlike other brews, the Critique Brew skips the Steep stage entirely — your draft is the draft. The Critic and Refiner take it from there.

Use it when you already have words on the page and want a calm editor, not a co-author.

When to reach for it

• Polishing a launch post before publishing
• Tightening a strategy memo before sending
• Pressure-testing an email you’ve rewritten three times
• Stress-testing claims in a one-pager

Inputs

Field	What to put
Title	A short handle for the draft
Goal	What “good” looks like (e.g. “crisp, under 200 words, no hedging”)
Context	Required. Paste the full draft here — it becomes the Steep output verbatim
Tone	The voice to preserve (e.g. “warm, direct, no jargon”)
Output format	Usually leave blank — Critique always returns a revised_draft

Pipeline shape

Leaves   →   (Steep skipped)   →   Taste   →   Pour   →   Archive
Scout                                Critic      Refiner    Archivist

The Brewer never runs. The Critic reads your draft directly and lists strengths, weaknesses, and missing pieces. The Refiner produces the revised draft.

Output

{
  "revised_draft": "...",
  "diff_summary": ["Tightened opening", "Removed two hedges", "..."],
  "strengths": ["..."],
  "remaining_risks": ["..."],
  "one_line_pitch": "..."
}

On the brew detail page, revised_draft renders in a copyable code block — one click to paste back into your editor.

Tips

• Critique respects your Cellar preferences, so set a “tone” preference once and every Critique honors it.
• Pair with Refine if the first pass loses your voice — feedback like “keep my original opening line” almost always lands.
• Save a Critique as a Recipe to lock in a personal editing style.