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Social media drinking apps for sending, sharing and enjoying.
Last issue, we covered Pintley, an application that helps to keep track of the beers that you’ve had and makes suggestions based on your likes/dislikes of those beers. We continue exploring the same aspect this time but focus on those applications that integrate with social media.
Untappd – This is a web based application that allows you to “check in” with the beer you’re drinking and gives you the option of adding the location (pulled from Foursquare) as well. The pub tab allows your friends to see what you’re drinking and “toast” (the Facebook equivalent of “like”) your choice. There are, of course, badges you can earn for various things: drinking before noon, drinking beers from specific countries, etc. Basically, this is Foursquare for beer. The updates are real-time, making it hard to be “at the office.” You can check in on Foursquare and post through Twitter, Facebook or by joining on the website. Since the
site is still in beta, it can feel a bit clunky but the support forums seem to get very quick responses from the developers. I’m wondering if this will spawn a new tool for beer lovers.
Beerby – (rhymes with nearby) A mobile application that allows you to rate the beer you’re drinking and check into Foursquare as well. Since this is a location based app, you search for places that serve a specific beer close to where you are. This will, hopefully, keep you from walking into a bar looking for craft beer and finding the usual macro beers on tap. Yes, you can check in with the big three and earn “badgers” (badges) as well. My favorite badger is The Silver Mullet, unlocked by drinking 24 Coors beers.
Red Pint – This app rewards you by giving you…. medals! Event medals, featured medals and regular medals. Good looking medals earned by drinking beer. I think I see a pattern here. Still, it’s enough of an inducement to get the app and give it a trial run. I’m glad I did. If your friends are on Red Pint, you can tag the photos (like Facebook) and post the update to Facebook and Twitter. Upload photos of the beers you’ve had to grow their database.
I put the apps through their paces and was pretty impressed by the beers I found when searching the respective databases. Beerby mentions having 30,000 beers in their searchable database; Red Pint has about 7,000 waiting to be enjoyed, although that number will grow since they use the Open Beer Database as their source. I’m leaving these apps installed on my phone since I’m going on a trip next week. I’m going to be using them in lieu of my standard locator web-based sources. I’m excited about the convergence of location based and social media. I see it as a way to meet other beer lovers and it gives me another reason to find a close bar.
These apps are available for iPhone, Android and some of the other popular operating systems. When in doubt, contact the developers for questions about your particular operating system. Finally, as we start our holidays, remember those less fortunate than you and support your favorite causes. Please be extra thankful when you can share a good beer with a friend.
