QHA_June Mag_for web_small_R1

LATEST & GREATEST
WONDERWALL
Photo Credit- Pour My Beer
The impact of the craft beer craze permeates
just about every element of how beer is sold and
consumed. With craft connoisseurs regularly
sampling multiple brews in one sitting, selfserve
“beer walls” offering up to 30 beers are
becoming the norm in American casual dining
establishments. As you’d expect, the keg-to-tap
component of the system works pretty much like
an about-face bar. The cool part is the POS tech.
One of the more popular set-ups allows guests to
charge up RFID cards while an iPad on each table
then track bevvies dispensed and displays the
customer’s account balance in real-time as he or
she pours from the tap. The iPads can also display
information about the beer, the venue and offers
limited internet access. Pour My Beer has recently
introduced this technology to Australia and is
hoping to work with QHA members who are keen
to address patrons queuing for drinks.
SORCEROUS BREW
The philosophy of open-source draws together
people with a common interest over the Internet
to pool expertise and create great things that
everybody (and nobody) owns. Across the cyber
realm it’s been applied to the development of
amazing software, apps, design concepts … and
now beer. Open-source gurus Mozilla recently
teamed up with a brewery in Oregon to craft a beer
via an online survey that sought informed opinion
of style, hops and any special extras respondents
though might go down a treat. The resulting data
was then put through some computational wizardry
to produce a recipe. The process might seem like
the ideal formula for a characterless mish-mash
of everything, but the final product, OpenSourcery
Tropical IPA, is apparently highly drinkable - if
American beers with citrus notes are your thing.
Its creators say the best part about open-source
development is that it can be called-on again in the
spirit of improving and refining. So look for product
upgrades of OpenSourcery 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc.
QHA REVIEW | 21