GUIDE · CHECKED NOVEMBER 10, 2026
There isn't one best beer app. Some tell you what the can in your hand is, some collect ratings from thousands of drinkers, others ship rare beer to your door. Here's which app does which job.
| If you want to | Try |
|---|---|
| Know what a can is before you buy it | BrewSense or Pint Please |
| See ratings and reviews from other drinkers | Untappd, BeerAdvocate or Pint Please |
| Find a bar or store near you that has a beer | BeerMenus |
| Get rare craft beer shipped to you | Tavour |
| Collect brewery visits and deals | PubPass or TapTrail |
| Remember whether you liked a beer | BrewSense, Untappd or Crumble |
You're at the shelf holding a beer you've never seen, and you want to know the style, the strength and whether it's your kind of beer before you pay for it.
Point your iPhone at a craft beer can and BrewSense tells you what it is in about a second, with no signal needed, then shows the style, ABV, a malt, hops and body readout, food pairings and the brewery. When it isn't sure, it says so and lets you search by name instead of guessing. It knows 1,600+ beers from 150+ breweries, not every beer, and it has no community ratings, friends or check-ins.
A beer rating community with a scanner. Its App Store listing describes a barcode scanner that pulls up a beer's details, average rating and reviews, from a database it puts at over 300,000 beers. You can log what you drink, earn stickers and levels, and in selected markets get deals at pubs.
BrewSense doesn't do this: the only rating you see on a beer is your own, so you rate it before anyone else's opinion gets in your head. If you want the crowd's verdict, these are built for it. Pint Please, above, shows average ratings and reviews too.
By its own description, millions of people use Untappd to rate, track and discover what they drink. Check in a beer with a rating, notes, a photo and where you had it, follow friends, earn badges, and search drinks with ratings and reviews from other drinkers. It covers wine and spirits too, scans barcodes, and shows live menus from places near you.
One of the oldest beer communities online, running since 1996. Reviews score a beer on look, smell, taste and feel, and the site keeps top-rated lists overall, by style and for new releases. Members also talk beer with each other.
You know the beer you want. You need the bar or store that has it today.
Up-to-date beer menus for bars, restaurants and beer stores near you. Follow a beer and it tells you when it turns up nearby; follow a place and it tells you when its menu changes. You can log the beers you drink, too.
BrewSense covers part of this: breweries near you with hours and whether they are open right now, and stores likely to carry the beer you just scanned.
The beer you read about isn't sold anywhere near you.
Not a store but a daily drop. At 10 am and 4 pm Pacific it releases a handful of limited beers from independent breweries, small batches it says you won't find at your local store. You pay as you add beers to your crate, then ship the crate when you're ready for one flat fee ($16.90, per its App Store listing). Check its site for where it ships.
BrewSense doesn't sell beer, take orders or deliver.
You like the taproom as much as the beer, and a reward for showing up never hurts.
A craft beer passport. Show the app at a participating bar or brewery and get that spot's deal, like a buy-one-get-one or a $1 beer, and each deal comes back after 30 days. Its website puts the price at $5 a month, cancel anytime. Check its site for participating cities.
A map of craft breweries with live tap lists and check-ins. Every visit adds to your trail and earns badges, participating breweries offer rewards, and its site says it pays for a free pint when you hit milestones.
You want to remember what you drank and what you thought of it.
Mainly a food and restaurant journal, friends-only by default, with tasting journals for beer, wine, coffee, tea and whisky that chart six flavor axes. It runs in your browser and can be added to your home screen; native apps are on its roadmap. Its site says a paid Crumble Plus tier lets you scan a label and have AI fill in the details.
BrewSense's Fridge is the beer-only version: save the beers you try, rate them, and look back through your scan history. Saving, rating and scan history need a free account. There's no crowd score on any beer to nudge your rating.
It depends on the job. To know what a can is at the shelf, use BrewSense. For ratings from other drinkers, Untappd, BeerAdvocate or Pint Please. To find who has a beer near you, BeerMenus. For rare beer shipped to you, Tavour. For brewery visits and deals, PubPass or TapTrail.
Yes. Point BrewSense at a craft beer can and it tells you what it is in about a second, on your iPhone, with no signal needed. It knows 1,600+ beers, not every beer, and says so when it isn't sure. Untappd and Pint Please have scanners too; their App Store listings describe barcode scanning.
In BrewSense, yes. No crowd, average or community score appears on any beer, so the only rating you see is your own.
BrewSense recognizes a can with no signal, because that happens on your phone; extras like nearby breweries and full beer details load when you're back online. The other apps' listings don't say either way, so check with each one.
Not yet. Android is coming soon. BrewSense is free on the App Store for iPhone today.
App names belong to their owners. BrewSense is an independent app, not affiliated with or endorsed by any app on this page.
