A few days ago I woke up with a couple emails about a new website called Pintley - Pintley as in pint, as in beer. In short:
- The emails were both a welcome affirmation and a unsurprising condemnation of time well spent.
- Pintley sells itself as the Pandora of beer discovery. Rate some brews and the idea is that they point you in the direction of others you’d like.
- Pintley is pretty geeky which is good because beer geeks are geeky too. Think BSG fans with liver damage.
- It’s up against two pretty well established players: BeerAdvocate and RateBeer. They don’t really do the recommending thing, at least not like Pintley, but they’re the big (although imperfect) folks in the surly online craft beer world.
- If the Pintley matching algorithm is little more than suggestions based off of style guides, then they’re fucked. If it can cater suggestions based on actual taste profiles (like being able to distinguish Ipswich IPA from Plinny the Elder) then Pintley would be pretty powerful. Even better would be recommendations based on common yeast strains (this would be intense), known malt builds (malt characteristics might be the only way to go), and hop varieties (probably the easiest of this three).
- Discovery is important to beer geeks, but after you’re fully indoctrinated it’s mostly centered around recently released beers or vintages or beers that you can’t get in your region anyways.
- The rest of the pintley offering is old news but still a pleasant sight since the discovery aspect can’t be expected to provide enough for a community by itself. Related: they better be good at community building. Related: beer helps with that.
- I’ll give it a go, but no review just yet. Reason one is it’s still in beta and reason two is something to do with my laziness.
I wrote too much, but here’s all you really need to know:
Today, go buy a beer you’ve never had before. Rinse. Repeat.
Obama presented Cameron with Goose Island 312 beer from Chicago while Cameron gave the President 5.2 percent Hobb Goblin beer.
A detractor might say that a Chicago beer makes it the overly safe pick, but you did alright. It’s the flavor of home - very appropriate - so I very much approve. Not brilliant, but I’ll still give you a “Bravo.”
However, I will not forget that at the one and only Beer Summit you poured yourself a Bud Light.
Beer is pretty magical. I’m a little down from a night of extra magic, so know that I’m still able to write that without waivering. Or queasy-ing. My faith is strong.
However, Senator Grassley of Iowa apparently thinks we’re making malted miracles. That is to say, he thinks the yeast, “or what it is in making beer,” consumes oil and can fix the little BP v nature kerfuffle.
Better go with a top-fermenting yeast, Senator. Maybe try a saison strain to work with the hot temperatures down in the Gulf. (Non-beer geeks need not concern themselves with these words.)
Or, just do a Google search before you embarrass yourself.
Between BP and Senator Grassley’s courageous efforts, we’ll soon have enough awful ideas to plug the hole. Sorry, I meant holes. Sorry, I meant ears. I give an over-under of a week before most everyone tunes out and forgets.
This post brought to you by email, markdown, and the A1 gate at the Burbank Airport
Addendum: This whole thing remind anyone else of this gem?
