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Posted by: Spencer // January 06 2010
If you’re a beer snob like me, having a mobile application to help you keep track of beers you’ve had, provide information on those you haven’t, and let you save tasting notes on all of them, seems like a great idea. With that in mind, I decided to download Gallagher’s Beer Guide for the iPhone in the hope that it would help me keep track of my beers. Despite the good reviews I read on the App Store, this app turned out to be a disappointment. I had two big problems with it:
- Not enough info – I was hoping for written descriptions of the beers, like the ones you find on Beer Advocate, but all that is included is the name of the beer, alcohol content by volume (ABV), and the style of beer. There are no descriptions or reviews, pictures, or links. It provides barely more than a listing of beers organized either alphabetically or by category.
- Poor functionality – The lazy programming sinks this app. The notes you make don’t link to specific beers. So when you find a beer, you can’t click on it and add personal notes. Nothing actually links to the beer list. The flavor guide and the food guides only list beer styles, without linking these styles to specific beers. This is very lazy, and a lost opportunity to make this program something special.
I also noticed some inaccurate information. For instance, the guide states that apricot is associated only with fruit beers, but a Magic Hat #9 is an ale that does possess the “essence of apricot.”
This application provides very little to justify paying anything for it – even if it’s only 99 cents. Bottom line: this app isn’t Sly at all. Save the dollar and put it towards your next microbrew discovery.
