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March 5, 2012

Beer Alchemy Review

Recently I had the idea to review my brewing recipe software of choice, this got me to thinking about the other types of software out there and I decided to get some other bloggers involved to review the software they use.
I use beer alchemy for all my recipes, I liked the look of the interface and the fact that it was mac native was attractive as well. The software retails for $29.95 and gives you the ability to install the software on up to two computers.

Admittedly I don't use all the features the software offers. I mainly use it to write out my recipes and get a target for original gravity, IBU, and color. All of the measurements have options for which method you choose to calculate them. You can keep brew day notes, a record of what you brewed and when and track your inventory. (these are the features I don't use) The software is really easy to jump in and start using, It's fully customizable to your batch sizes, extract or all grain, and addition of new ingredients. To get your recipe onto paper you can either export the files through email, PDF, or as a webpage (I use the webpage so it prints nicely). Additionally you can change the alpha acid amounts on the hop additions, and formulate your grist bill by desired pre boil gravity and percentage of the individual malts and you can create custom mash schedules. It really has all the features you would ever need.
Additionally there is a mobile version of the software available. The mobile version has all of the same features as the desktop version, however, it's not quite as user friendly as the desktop version.


All in all I think the software is totally worth the $30 price, I have no interest in doing all these recipe calculations by hand. I think the simple interface makes it easy to jump right in and start designing recipes.










Here are some links to my collaborators blogs:
BrewMate- Beer & Garden 
iBrewmaster- Homebrew Academy
Beersmith 1- Atomic Donkey Brewing
Brewtarget- Shegogue Brew

4 comments:

  1. Great idea, the collaboration review! Beer Alchemy is priced around the same as BeerSmith, have you compared it with BeerSMith to see how they stack up against each other?

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  2. I bought beer smith 2. I didn't really like it though. The interface was a little more complicated for me, also at that time I was really used to beer alchemy so I never got into it.

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    1. This is a big user preference when it comes to brewing software - once you are familiar with it, unless it doesn't accomplish what you want, its hard to want to learn a new software or change. Especially if the new software costs money as well.

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  3. I admit beer smith has lots of bells and whistles that look really attractive (pitching rate calculator, efficiency calculator) but I calculate them myself and I'm just too used to beer alchemy.

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