There’s a virtually limitless world of iPhone apps out there today, ranging from the extremely useful to the outlandishly inane.
The world’s greatest beverage hasn’t escaped the iPhone’s pull, either. While some of the gadget’s beery apps are worthless for anything but a laugh and even downright demeaning—come on, I don’t want to pretend I’m drinking a beer!—others are decidedly more useful. One such example is GreatBrewers.com’s BeerCloud.
Great Brewers describes BeerCloud for the iPhone thusly:
“BeerCloud is a revolutionary mobile app that helps you pair beer with food, track down your favorite beers in your neighborhood, discover the world of beer styles, and pull up a full description of nearly any beer in seconds. Whether you’re a beer consumer who could use some guidance in making a well-educated purchase, a food lover looking to discover new ways to enhance a meal with a complementary beer pairing, or a traveling beer enthusiast who wants to instantly map the closest stores, bars, and restaurants carrying your favorite beers, BeerCloud is an essential iPhone app.”
That means that, instead of having to pretend to drink a beer, you can find out just where to get the best ones, and even what type of food you should pair them with. BeerCloud is able to utilize the iPhone’s GPS receiver to point out exactly where to you should head when looking for that elusive one-off Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout or the nearest brewpub to your hotel.
Great Brewers’ database is being constantly updated, but it’s currently quite a ways off from those of BeerAdvocate or RateBeer. BeerAdvocate’s BeerFly tool is a great way to find the best breweries, brewpubs, beer bars and shops in an area, but it doesn’t integrate with your GPS to tell you where they are, so BeerCloud has a one-up in that aspect. And its other features only bolster its usefulness. The website touts the following for its app (which, in addition to iPhone availability, can also be nabbed for Google’s Android):
- Search the perpetually growing database of 2,900+ beers from GreatBrewers.com
- Descriptions include product image, style, taste profile, food pairing recommendation, strength (ABV), color (SRM), and bitterness (IBU)
- View more than 400 brewery pages for a description and a list of beers they produce
For beer lovers sporting iPhones in their pockets, BeerCloud is perhaps the greatest addition to portable beer connoisseurship since Oskar Blues put Ten Fidy in a can.
And undoubtedly BeerCloud would be quite apt at telling you where you can grab a can or six.
