Press Release: Craft Beer Recommendation App Barly Adds Tap List Search For 100,000+ Venues
Los Angeles, California – Barly’s most recent update, released this week, includes a feature called Location Search that lets a user see what beers are on tap and get personalized recommendations at over 100,000 bars, brewery tap rooms, and restaurants worldwide.
Location Search marks a major milestone for Barly. Previously, users were provided recommendations only for venues near their current location. Now they can search locations anywhere on earth, and plan a night out across town or across the country before leaving home.
Barly was released in 2015 after founders Nick Norton, Craig Vermeyen, Hunter Knight, and Mike Weil were looking for a way to get beer recommendations that matched their personal taste.
“We were unhappy with the options available because the recommendations they made weren’t personalized, and taste is such an individual thing,” says Norton. “Craft beer experts and beer databases rate triple IPAs highly, but recommending something so hoppy to a craft beer novice could turn them off. We wanted a way to recommend beers that match a users’ palate.”
The team invented the character of Charles Barly to serve as the user’s personal beer expert. The first time you use the app, Charles asks your taste preference using flavors everyone can understand, like “sweet,” “bitter,” and “roasty.” Barly then combines your preferences with ratings, reviews, and details about each beer and recommends a match for the user to order.
Experts find Barly useful too. Experienced beer drinkers can access an advanced palate to set more specific flavor preferences, learn detailed information about each beer, and save personal ratings and reviews to refer back to anytime. The app displays a beer’s rating with stars alongside the percentage match to a user’s palate.
In recent years the number of craft breweries in the United States has risen from 1,460 (2006) to 5,301 (2016) (source: Brewers Association). Industry analysts believe this trend will continue, and Barly is poised to help consumers navigate this vast and complex market.
Facilitating access to previously esoteric knowledge will increase the number of people drinking great beer. Mr. Norton says “it can be intimidating to spend money on something new if you don’t know you’ll like it. Our app gives beer drinkers everywhere the confidence to take the plunge and start exploring this thriving scene.”
Top Banana Technologies, Inc. created the Barly application to help everyone find and drink better beer. The application can be downloaded for free from the Google Play and Apple App stores and more information can be found on their website, barlyapp.com.