Trying to topple the Untappd in the craft beer app hierarchy has proven futile but I did hold out hope for the new Beat the Brewmaster app that I recently downloaded and took for a bit of a test drive.
Beat the Brewmaster combines the check-in culture with those “who want to know more about the beer they are drinking.” There are three tabs. Checking in to a beer, overall beer trivia and the brewmaster sensory section.
The general beer trivia from which you can gain points and compete against friends or unknowns contains really good questions. I ran through a few and had to make guesses on some. Part science and part fun (Who is the lion in the Firestone Walker logo?) they are a bit addicting.
The checking in is a little slow and many beers are missing which is a bummer because if the beer isn’t there then two of the tabs become unusable. Even if you find your beer, I checked Allagash since it is a larger brewery whose beer I had recently, the app was not connected to the Maine brewery and so the brewmaster section is again grayed out and unclickable. I assume that more and more beers will be added (crowdsourcing this is really the way to go) and that more breweries will sign up to become players as part of their social media strategy.
As of now, I would like to beat questions from an L.A. based brewery and not Boulder Beer Co. whose beers we don’t get but who seems to be the biggest player in the brewmaster section of the app. This makes the app not up to speed yet. More beta and (hopefully) growing.
I think the idea of a “challenge the actual Brewmasters with their tasting skills by answering specific sensory questions for each beer” is great and the fact that actual prizes can be won is a distinguishing feature too.
Right now, I suggest playing the trivia and occasionally checking in to see how many local breweries you can play “against”.