I can think of very few things as sad as a beer keg gone dry. Now, I’m proud to note that a firm from my home Hoosier state, Indiana, has invented a system to allow your local bartender to keep track of the amount of beer left in his kegs, and even notify you when he’s tapped a new keg!
From the iKeg Press Release:
iKeg accurately measures and reports the real-time inventory of draft kegs and automates the order and fulfillment process for draft beer, as well as, bottled and canned beer as well.
“Beer sold in retail establishments accounts for a 21 billion dollar industry, yet the industry still relies on the inaccurate process of ‘shaking the keg’ – the same method used since the inception of the product,” says SteadyServ co-founder and CEO, Steve Hershberger.
The iKeg system consists of hardware, software, and a mobile app. The hardware consists of a removable sensor ring that attaches to a keg, and a corresponding RFID tag. The tag gets scanned, the cloud based software receives the data from the tag, and tracks how much beer is remaining, and also the type of beer, and when it was delivered. Along with that info, the system also tracks how much stock remains, when the next delivery date is, info about previous orders, and even past and present consumption trends.
Now for the most important part of the system…
“iKeg also provides a set of robust embedded social media tools retailers can use to promote current inventory via social media channels such as pushing out a message every time a new keg is tapped, how many pints of a popular draft is left, etc., communicating information that was previously unshared with patrons.”
Yes, information beer drinkers can truly use.
For more information, visit the SteadyServ website.
