![\"header-5\"](\"http:\/\/urban-plains.com\/2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/header-5-1124x749.jpg\")
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Words and photos by Allison Trebacz<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Four Midwestern tech gurus walk into a bar.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s no punchline\u2014just a modernized craft brewing technology for beer drinkers who want to add a little learning to their lit lifestyles.<\/span><\/p>\n Ben McDougal and his co-founders at <\/span>FliteBrite<\/span><\/a> are the guys. <\/span><\/p>\n They\u2019re a group of entrepreneurs working hard to amp up your average flight of beer. A flight of beer is like an array of wedding cake samples for drinkers\u2014typically four small glasses of different beer served at once on a paddle to be tasted. Less frosting, more froth.<\/span><\/p>\n Some breweries and brewpubs let customers build their own flights while others have a pre-fixed menu. But if you\u2019re sitting at one of the \u201cmake-your-own-flight\u201d places, how do you remember the four beers you\u2019re trying? Brand and brew knowledge can be fleeting (pun intended)\u2014especially if you\u2019ve toasted one too many already.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s where FliteBrite steps in. It\u2019s the world\u2019s first electronic flight paddle.<\/span><\/p>\n The paddle handle display is entirely interactive with full descriptions and an individual, shareable URL for every flight. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of one of those things where it\u2019s like, \u2018Geez, I didn\u2019t know this was a problem.\u2019 Until I knew the solution,\u201d said McDougal.<\/p><\/div>\n The FliteBrite paddle displays the names and descriptions of the beer on the flight to make remembering easier during an exercise some use to forget. FliteBrite partners with <\/span>Untappd<\/span><\/a>, a social beer-drinking app, with an ever-expanding database of beers, for its dialed-in beer-centric stats.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs a consumer, not only can you see which one is which, but if you were to go in and actually click on [a beer] and take a peek at more details of each of the beers, you can learn a little more about it,\u201d McDougal said. <\/span><\/p>\n The partnership with Untappd goes beyond data on the paddle. The app has nearly four million users and is host to the most comprehensive database of beers, breweries and reviews (think the Yelp of beer). That\u2019s great for drinkers. But for breweries, there\u2019s an extra layer to the app: the ability to manage what beers are available\u2014and what beers can appear on your flights. To add a new beer to a brewery\u2019s system, it just needs to be available on Untappd\u2014with a few clicks, the description gets loaded from the app into the FliteBrite system. In seconds it\u2019s available to customers.<\/span><\/p>\n Every flight receives a unique code that can be shared over social media so you can forever remember your flight. Currently, it only posts to Facebook, but upcoming updates will further integrate with Untappd so you can share it with all of your true, ale-loving friends.<\/span><\/p>\n A prototype was first unveiled to consumers and tested at<\/span> Exile Brewing Company<\/span><\/a> in Des Moines. \u201cHe\u2019s averaging about 35 flights per day,\u201d McDougal said. \u201cI can tell you that <\/span>Oktoberfest<\/span><\/a> is the most popular in the flight, with Jose Saison and Jesus in a Forklift in second.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to be delivering our first round of preorders in November,\u201d said McDougal. Unlike the prototype, the first round of pre-ordered FliteBrites will have smoother graphics, they\u2019ll be water resistant and they\u2019ll look a little more cutting edge.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cIt is really cool to think that something hot, coming of Des Moines, coming of Iowa, coming out of the Midwest is about to change the game of the entire craft beer industry,\u201d McDougal said. <\/span><\/p>\n And FliteBrite isn\u2019t the only company in Des Moines that sees the future of craft brewing in data. While McDougal is working to bring tech to the bar, John Jackovin and his team at <\/span>Brewd<\/span><\/a> are working to take some of the extra number crunching out of the administrative process.<\/span><\/p>\n Brewd designed software that streamlines the administrative processes involved with self-distributing breweries. It\u2019s like a large-scale Excel formula condensed into one program, centered around the thing that brings many together: beer brewing.<\/span><\/p>\n Brewing is as much an art as it is a science, so we have to accommodate for that.\u201d<\/p>\n -John Jackovin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe have a really strong focus on that process that allows everybody within the brewery to see inventory levels,\u201d Jackovin said. \u201cThey can search all deliveries, they can route those deliveries and then everything just integrates back into [the accounting program] <\/span>QuickBooks<\/span><\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n So far, it\u2019s worked. Brewd software has already been implemented by several Des Moines breweries and they\u2019ve expanded business into several other states, including Hawaii.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBrewing is as much an art as it is a science, so we have to accommodate for that,\u201d Jackovin said. Brewd has figured out a way to make sure brewers get to spend more time brewing and less time pouring over paper, Google docs or fixing accounting errors in QuickBooks. \u201cSo now it\u2019s not one person who has to enter all of the information.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While Brewd is still starting out, there are plenty of early adopters like Eric Selander of <\/span>Confluence Brewing Company<\/span><\/a> in Des Moines. \u201cThe nice thing about Brewd is that it\u2019s going to put everything in one location,\u201d Selander said. <\/span><\/p>\n Selander helped with the development and continues to assist Brewd in developing other functions for the software. \u201cThis section of it that\u2019s been fully released mostly caters to self-distributing breweries, which is most breweries when they\u2019re starting up. Keg tracking software is coming soon.\u201d And it works because Confluence Brewing is in Brewd\u2019s target market of distributing breweries\u2014they distribute for others, distribute for themselves and they produce.<\/span><\/p>\n That would be a lot of spreadsheets to keep track of.<\/span><\/p>\n Since 2012, the number of breweries in the U.S. has<\/span> nearly doubled<\/span><\/a>, and catering to self-distributing breweries is just the beginning for these Iowa companies. FliteBrite and Brewd have already impacted brewing in Iowa. McDougal and Jackovin believe they\u2019ll improve craft brewing on a national level when both of their companies make their official debut at the <\/span>Craft Brewers Conference<\/span><\/a> in Washington, D.C., next April. <\/span><\/p>\n Until then, they will continue to do market research\u2014one pint at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two Des Moines start-ups aim to modernize the beer industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/urban-plains.com\/2016\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/1-2-1124x749.jpg\")
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