Beer App-apalooza

It use to be when you liked a beer you would call your buddy and say get over here and try this beer, or grab some and take it to them.  Now you don't even have to speak to let the entire world know about a beer you've found or search for a place to find a beer near you.  Smartphone apps are indeed amazing and here is how they can increase your beer enjoyment.

There are lots of apps with a beer theme.  As a matter of fact if you just go to the Android marketplace and search "beer" you will get pages and pages and pages of responses.  Lots of them are things like virtual beer pong, or iBeer which is quite seriously an app that lets you virtually drink a beer (think I can like a long time without pretending to chug from my phone) but there are a number that offer services to the intrepid beer hunter and those are the ones I wanna talk about.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I am a member of Untapped which is a sweet app that lets you "chick-in" when you enjoy a beer.  You can search by brewery or beer name and score the beer on a scale of 1-5 stars.  You can link up with your friends or make new ones in the pub feature.  This app is also Facebook friendly and will post all of your badges of beer honor for all your friends and family to see if you so desire.  I am pretty fond of this app so far.  Easy to use and so far I haven't had a brewery or beer that it didn't have in it's database.  It isn't gorgeous but it does give images of the labels on most brews to assist in identification.  I give it a thumbs up for a great free app.

Another app that I've found that bears great similarity to Untapped is called Pintley.  I haven't had this app as long as the other yet but it quite honestly seems to do very similar things but with several notable expansions.  When you first sign up it goes through a good sized list of different beers and asks you for a quick rating so the app can learn your preferences and make better suggestions for you. Ok that's cool.  You can still track and rate your beer, but the true beer snob can go in and make "beer notes" on their drink with everything from appearance and aroma to texture and value.  The devil is in the details.  Last major difference is the addition of points which are earned by adding beers to your favorites or wishlist or by following certain brewers.  They say these points will lead to prizes. . .we shall see about that.  Over all a very well put together app. Visually lovely and from my poking around it seems to cover a wide range of beers and breweries.  Add to my opinion so far that it is a free app and you have a winner in my book.  

After those two I found something just a little bit different.  Beer Cloud is a beer app with a higher purpose.  Here you can search by the regular old typing for beer or brewery or you can take a snapshot of the barcode, do a voice search, or search by map for nearby beers (only in some areas - not mine, booo).  To try out the voice search I said Terrapin and was treated to a list of all the beers Terrapin offers as well as a few beers with terrapin in their title all with little snapshots of the labels to aid identification.  Selecting a beer brings up a little description and options for view tasting notes, find that beer, or go to the brewer's general page.  Brewer's pages have great little write ups on the company and its history as well as pictures (they didn't always work on my phone) and a tab that shows a complete list of their beer offerings but without the nice label images.  Back at the home page for this app there is another neat offering the previous apps haven't even attempted to touch - the Sommelier.  Yes you tell them what your chowing on and they tell you what types of beers would best pair with it.  And it is detailed! Not just I'm having pasta, ok have a pale ale - under pasta i can tell them im having anything from couscous to thai noodles and get a range of suggested beer types.  Those types then turn into lists of beers in that type and back to the earlier beer and brewery listings.  It also has a personalized section which after registering for I am still unable to get into (and I swear I'm putting in the right info) so I guess it's up to you on that part.  Overall another really killer free beer app.  

If you are only gonna take up phone memory with one I would lean towards Beer Cloud simply for the variety of information offered.  Me personally, I love my Untapped and won't be letting it go anytime soon.  There are oodles of other beer apps, many location specific, so if you find one that is note worthy let me know.  Until then, cheers!