Untappd: Find Beer You'll Love

Review by eFreeware

Untappd is a free app from the developer of the same name, listed under Food & Drink, and it has been part of the beer landscape for a long time: it arrived in September 2011 and still draws a large audience, with more than 5 million installs and a 4.7 average from over 305,000 ratings. The pitch is straightforward. It is a social record of what you drink, a catalog to explore, and a way to find places nearby that serve beer.

The reason to consider it is the combination of personal tracking and discovery in one place. You log a beer, give it a rating, and that builds a profile the app uses to suggest things you might like. Alongside that sits a social layer: you can see what friends are drinking and compare impressions. If you already take notes on beers in a notebook or a spreadsheet, this moves that habit onto your phone and attaches a community to it.

It is rated Mature 17+, which fits the subject matter, and the app is free to download with ads and in-app purchases present. That mix shapes what you get: a broad, free tool with a commercial side, including a shop that is not available everywhere.

Check-ins, ratings and the profile they build

The core action is the check-in. You record a beer as you drink it and rate it, and over time those entries form a personal beer profile. That profile is not just a diary. The developer says recommendations are personalized based on your taste, so the ratings you give feed back into what the app surfaces for you. The more consistently you rate, the more useful that feedback loop should become.

The catalog behind it is large. The developer describes millions of beers with detailed information, ratings and reviews attached to each entry. That means when you check something in, you are usually adding to an existing record rather than creating one from scratch, and you can read what others made of a beer before or after you try it.

There is a light game layer on top. Badges and achievements are awarded as you explore new styles and breweries, which gives a reason to try something outside your usual order. For some people that is a nudge; for others it is the main draw, since it turns browsing into a set of small goals.

Finding beers and places around you

Discovery runs in two directions. One is the catalog: browsing beers, reading their ratings and reviews, and following the recommendations the app generates from your history. The other is local. Untappd lists nearby breweries, bars and taprooms, and the developer says those listings include live beer menus, so you can see what is pouring before you decide where to go.

The social side sits alongside both. You can connect with friends and see what they are drinking, which is a different kind of recommendation than an algorithm produces: it is the beer someone you know chose last week. For anyone who drinks with a regular group, that shared visibility is often the part that keeps the app open.

There is also a shopping element. Untappd Shop lets you buy beers inside the app, though it is available only in select U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and the Netherlands. If you are outside those areas, the shop is not part of your experience, and the app remains a discovery, tracking and social tool.

What the app asks of you

The download is free, and the app carries ads and offers in-app purchases. Buying beer through the app depends on living in one of the listed regions, so shop availability is geographic rather than universal.

The other requirement is participation. Recommendations are built from your taste, which means they depend on you checking in and rating what you drink. A profile with a handful of entries gives the app little to work with. The value accumulates with use, and that is a commitment rather than a one-off setup.

The content rating is Mature 17+, which is consistent with an app built around alcohol. It is designed for adults, and the social features assume you are comfortable sharing what you drink with people you connect to.

Getting useful results from it

The most practical approach is to rate honestly and consistently from the start. Since recommendations follow your taste, inflating scores or rating everything the same blurs the signal. A short note on why you liked or disliked something is more useful to you later than a bare number, and it gives friends something to respond to.

Use the local listings when you are deciding where to spend an evening rather than after you arrive. Live menus are the point: they tell you what a venue currently has, which is more useful than a static description. If you are traveling, checking nearby venues before you set out is a reasonable habit.

Treat the badges as a prompt rather than a checklist. They point toward styles and breweries you have not tried, which is a decent way to break out of a routine. The recent update is limited to general improvements and bug fixes, so there is no new feature to learn; the app works as it has, with the developer reachable at [email protected] for problems.

A keeper for drinkers who like a record

Untappd does one thing well and builds a community around it: it turns drinking beer into something you log, rate and share. The catalog is deep, the local venue listings with live menus are genuinely useful when you are choosing where to go, and the social feed gives the whole thing a reason to come back. The badges add a bit of structure to exploring.

The trade-offs are clear enough. It is free but ad-supported and includes in-app purchases, the shop only works in certain U.S. states, D.C. and the Netherlands, and the recommendations only become worthwhile once you have put in the ratings. It is also an adults-only app by rating, which is appropriate for what it covers.

This suits anyone who already enjoys keeping track of what they drink and wants that record connected to other people. If you like the idea of a personal beer history that also tells you what is on tap nearby and what your friends thought, it is an easy install. If you would rather drink without logging anything, the app has little to offer you.

What's new

Update: - General improvements and bug fixes See an issue? Email us at [email protected]