With craft beer increasing in popularity with both consumers and brewers, a high number of beer brewing apps has been made available to support the brewing processes.
This article lists recommendations of apps for hobby- and craft brewers and summarizes their features.
Only for Android – FREE
The free Wort Homebrew Calculator app offers various benefits. These include a recipe calculator, very large ingredient database, and style guidelines (original extract, alcohol content, bitterness) for many beer types. During the brewing process it is possible to add further information about the brew and the app gives insight into the resulting beer.
A special feature of this app is that in the first step it is possible to select the desired ingredients and the beer style for the brew. Afterwards the app calculates the original gravity, the bitterness (IBU), the alcohol content, and even the color of the finished beer. This beer brewing app compares these results to defined style guidelines and thereby lets its users know whether their beer will be too bitter for their selected beer style, for instance.
This feature is helpful as it gives the chance to detect potential mistakes in the selection of ingredients before starting the brewing process.
On the downside, this free brewing app does not offer any recipes. It is also only available for Android users (as of July 2017). Users who wish to access a large recipe database might be more interested in the next app.
The BeerSmith app connects the user to thousands of recipes on the BeerSmithRecipes.com page. There is also a useful timer which indicates when the next brewing step is needed. This app offers built-in calculators for infusions, alcohol/attenuation, mash adjust, weight/volume, and carbonation.
The main benefit of this app is the variety of recipes, some of which come from experienced homebrewers. Users can comment on the recipes and rate them.
Additionally the app contains a smart feature that recalculates recipes according to the amount of liters the user wants to brew.
Reflecting the huge interest in homebrewing and craft brewing in German-speaking countries, there are many German-language apps available. The “kleiner Brauhelfer” is small but mighty.
Features include creating, managing, and tweaking recipes, and calculating the malt, hops, and yeast. To use the app users need to connect to the desktop version of “Brauhelfer” via an internet connection.
Only for iOS – FREE
The BJCP Styles app offers information on different beer styles (both 2008 and 2015). It is suitable for users who are looking for information on a particular beer style or looking for a special new beer to try out brewing. The beer styles are defined according to the Beer Judge Certification Program.
FREE
The free Homebrew Talk app is a forum revolving around beer brewing. It covers recipes, brewing-related topics, and offers a platform for questions and answers, as well as open discussions.
FREE
The free EasyDens app connects users with the density and concentration meter EasyDens. The EasyDens density meter determines the temperature and extract content of the beer wort, and tells users when it is time for bottling. All the data is sent to the smartphone. The EasyDens app is available for Android.
See below for the different modes available:
Mode 1: For the determination of original extract and apparent extract in percent by weight (%w/w, equates to degrees Plato), temperature-compensated
Mode 2: X Specific gravity (SG), temperature-compensated
Mode 3: Density in g/cm³, not temperature-compensated
Mode 4: Density in kg/cm³, not temperature-compensated
Mode 5: Alcohol content in percent by volume (%v/v), temperature-compensated. Used for the determination of the alcohol content of binary aqueous alcohol solutions and distillates with a low extract content (e.g. spirits, gin, vodka, etc.).
Mode 6: Sugar content (°Brix), temperature-compensated (for wine and fruit juice)
