Barcodes for Your Homebrew
You spend hours making your own beer and then bottling or kegging it, not to mention the countless time spent researching and planning for your brew days. When people hear you brew your own beer, they want to try it. Homebrewers give a lot of beer away, but we often never hear any feedback from the consumers (friends, family, strangers at homebrew festivals, etc).
Feedback is good. Feedback allows you to make adjustments to your recipes and your brew process. Maybe you’ve poured beer at an event where dozens, or even hundreds, of fellow homebrewers have tasted samples of your homebrew. Now imagine if you had the honest opinions from all of those people on your beer that they drank.
I like technology, especially when it makes life easier. Why not use modern technology to make it easy and convenient for consumers to provide you feedback?
About a year ago I started using the Untappd app on my phone to track all the various commercial beers that are on the market today. It’s convenient and easy to use. I quickly realized that I could use it to track my homebrews as well. I’ll input my beers, take photos, and make notes on them. With the information input, I can go back and review my previous batches at a later time. One good thing about Untappd is that even if my computer crashes all of that information is not affected. Plus, the information is accessible from anywhere. It is also good for quality control when you are aging a beer you can see how you rated it over time. The best part about this is that it’s practically free and you can utilize the same technology that the commercial guys are using.
While this column is going to be about how to make barcodes for your beers and make it easy for people to rate your beers on Untappd, it should be noted that you can use different styles of barcodes to go to a specific website, which is good if you want to use something instead of Untappd, promote your homebrew club, or maybe for a homebrew competition advertisement. Or, you could barcode your brewing grain containers and speed up the inventory or ordering process. Using barcodes isn’t necessary for the Untappd app (you can manually search for a beer or brewery, too) but it does speed up the search process significantly, and it’s fun!
Parts/Equipment
Labels or paper
Printer
Computer with Internet
Untappd app
Step by Step
1. Set up your homebrewery on untappd
Think of a clever name for your homebrewery. Make it unique; there are a lot breweries out there and avoiding confusion is important. I named mine “Beers at Berniers” because the beers I have input are available at my house (at least they were at one time or other). Set up an account for your brewery on Untappd. Even if you already have a user account, you are going to need to set up an account for your brewery. The brewery account lets you make account changes, input photos, input beers, and read the feedback people are saying about your beers. You can also comment on their comments.
2. Brew a beer and give it a name
Brew a beer and start thinking of a unique name for it. I never used to come up with names for my brews but I learned over time that after you brew one porter, the next time you brew a different porter you can’t keep naming it porter. You need to have different names to distinguish them. A recent beer I brewed is a Munich Helles so I’m naming it “What the Helles this Barcode For?”
3. Get your barcode
Get your free barcode. There are numerous websites out there that can generate free barcodes for you — I use http://barcode.tec-it.com/en. I had no idea there were so many different barcodes or things you can do with them. If you then scan the barcode you created, it will take you to that site. I found by playing around with the barcode generator that sometimes a barcode may work with an apple iPhone but not an Android phone. I want the barcode to work for as many smart phones as possible so I can get as much feedback as possible. I selected a linear code style, and when the menu drops down, I selected “code-2of5 interleaved” because this works with most phones I tested it on. In the data box, delete the numbers 1234567890 and put your own unique number. Write down your unique number and then click refresh and you will see your barcode get generated before your eyes. Then click download. Make note of where it is downloaded to.
4. Add the beer to Untappd
Log on to your Untappd brewery account. Under brewery management click “add a beer.” This is where you input your clever beer name, style, IBUs, ABV, add a photo, give a description of the beer, and even add an image of the label. Click on UPC at the top and enter your unique number from Step 3. I like to test out the barcode before I go through the process of printing off the barcodes so I know it works beforehand. To test your barcode, open your Untappd user account on your phone. In the app, search for beer/brewery/venue. You will see a barcode image at the top right, touch that and that will open your camera on your phone for you to scan the barcode you wish to test (you may need to enable the camera in your settings for the Untappd app). Your newly created beer should pop up.
5. Make your labels
Make labels for your beers and place the barcode on them. There are numerous companies that you can use to design labels on their websites, or you can make your own labels on your computer. If they are really good labels, enter them in the annual BYO label contest! I recommend putting something on the labels saying to scan the barcode on Untappd so everyone knows what the barcode is for. Place labels on bottles and then distribute your homebrew to family and friends. If you are not a bottler and keg everything, print a barcode and stick it to your tap handle or stick it near your kegerator. Sometimes I will volunteer my time and beer for fundraising events for charity, and in those cases I can print copies of the barcode out and distribute it with the beers.
6. Enjoy and use the feedback
Log into your Untappd brewery account and read your reviews. Make recipe adjustments, adjust your process, or maybe throw out the recipe. What you do with the feedback is up to you. Remember not to take it too personally — some people don’t enjoy beer as much as us. Some people only like a few beer styles, and on top of that everyone’s beer rating scale is different. In the end, if you like the beer you brew, that is what is most important, but this gives you an idea of what others think. It also lets you know what types of beers your friends may enjoy as gifts in the future based on their ratings.
