Tag: Technology
There’s something fresh about releasing new #brewtech at the industry’s largest annual pilgrimage, the Brewers Association’s Craft Brewers Conference.
It feels like a lifetime ago, but CBC is where our team first revealed our patented electronic serving system at #CBC16 in Philly. We then returned to formally welcome the world to #SmartFlights at #CBC17 in Washington DC. It’s been awhile since we’ve released fresh tech, but we’re thrill to be at #CBC22 to introduce a new tool for the taproom.
TasteTracker™ is a fun, interactive, data-driven platform that allows thirsty customers to learn more about each beer on tap. As they rate and track their favorites, breweries and restaurants can make more informed decisions on what to brew in the future. Connected to our intuitive beer festival app that’s now being served at brewfests nationwide, this taproom tasting app is made to be fast and easy to update. The dashboard allows taproom managers to keep everything hoppin’ from any device, with real-time analytics built to boost the bottom line.
Ready to tap in? Let’s chat.
We’ve added a fresh feature to our beer festival app!
Sponsor spotlights allow event organizers to highlight partners who understand the value of endless eyeballs that our brewfest app attracts before, during, and after an event. This dynamic feature gives our clients full control of how many sponsors to showcase and where they land within the app. Knowing how valuable this placement is, we’ve literally given event organizers a fast way to cover the cost of our technology and we’re thrilled to see how progressive event organizers are using the sponsor spotlights to create all-new revenue channels!
Click over to the beer festival app page to see how this slick feature pairs with all the other things that make our dedicated beer festival app the most powerful, affordable, and easy-to-use solution for events of any size. When your team is ready to unlock what’s next for your brewfest, let’s chat.
Persistence brews ideas into reality 🍻
The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued US Patent 10,657,545 for FliteBrite’s innovative Electronic Serving System on May 19, 2020.
As we celebrate this milestone moment, our team would like to thank everyone who has supported this crazy journey that started by not knowing which beer was which as our beer flights arrived. We’d like to extend a special shoutout to Tim Zarley and the legal team at Zarley Law. This Iowa law firm dedicated to intellectual property law believed in our team and the potential of our electronic serving system since the very beginning. Together, we’ve successfully navigated the complex process of protecting both our trademarks and this patented technology that has increased the stability and overall value of our company.
#SmartFlights ignite an interactive food and beverage tasting experience unlike any other. US Patent 10,657,545 is an achievement that represents how unique this Electronic Serving System truly is.
Please contact us if your team is interested in our electronic beer flight paddles or licensing our patented technology. Cheers to US Patent 10,657,545!
Introducing the FliteBrite vendor profile system built to save time by making real-time beer list management a breeze.
“Instead of a few doing a lot, allow many to do just a little.” -BEN
If you’re an event organizer, you know how challenging it can be to wrangle a bunch of different vendors to get you beer list organized. The official list of all that’s being served at your craft beer event is something that attendees want to see and a great promotional opportunity to drive ticket sales a few weeks from the event, but it can be like herding cats trying to manually organize your entire beer list.
After using our beer festival app at different types of events, we realized our platform could help organizers be way more efficient by allowing vendors to manage their own profiles and their ever-changing beer lists. We made the entire process super slick, easy and fast:
- Vendors receive email invitations to activate their free account.
- Each vendor sets up their own profile and creates a beer list.
- All done and anything can update from any device, anytime!
The FliteBrite Vendor Portal was built to save time and because it allows us to scale. We’re excited to hear what event organizers think of this new tool that gives vendors a chance to showcase themselves on the app, while saving them time and still offering a fresh new way for attendees to track all their favorites from the event.
If you’re an event organizer planning your calendar, we should chat!
We just went LIVE at Firetrucker Brewery in Ankeny, Iowa.
Whatta moment!
Firetrucker has become a great friend and a meaningful ally. They serve a nice variety of sophisticated brews and are excited to now be one of the first to serve #SmartFlights. Firetrucker believes #BeerIsArt and now their beer flights look as good as they taste! We’ve learned a lot from this brewery and it’s been a pleasure collaborating with them. Setup went super smooth as our team had Liz and Dan online with electronic beer flights in just a fun short visit.
Once online, we experienced an immediate impact as Firetrucker announced on social media that they were inspired to build new preset flights for their menu:
Our new @FliteBrite paddles have inspired a new flight menu! Come help us test it out tonight! #beerisart #fancynewtoys
— Firetrucker Brewery (@FiretruckerBrew) June 21, 2017
As they invited all their fans to stop by to try their beer flight menu, we literally had to increase the dashboard’s primary overview graph that reports a snapshot of how many #SmartFlights an establishment is serving each day! Nice work Firetrucker! At around $8 per beer flight, it’ll be exciting to see revenue continue to benefit from this brewery’s new cool factor and you know positive data results that break our graphs, is always something we’re happy to fix!
Our electronic hardware product is being used by industry professionals who don’t know us and we’re watching craft beer-loving customers fall in love with the future of beer flights.
We have some borderline epic news on the horizon, but for the moment, we invite everyone to head over to Exile Brewing and now Firetrucker Brewing to enjoy this era of #SmartFlights. Cheers!
In collaboration with MBA students at the University of Iowa, we’re using real-world data to quantify the value of smart beer flights.
After a semester of planning, we established a real-world research project that pushed our electronic technology into the wild for the very first time! In collaboration with our friends at Exile Brewing Co., which is a Des Moines-based restaurant, taproom and brewery that distributes craft beer throughout Iowa, we were able to compare one week of “business as usual”, to one full week with smart beer flights online.
Our team and the MBA research team were given full access to financial data and surveys completed by actual customers as they compared beer sales, customer responses, social media activity, staff feedback and overall sales. We began seeing live data flowing into the online dashboard for the first time. It was crazy cool. In fact, if you’re willing to squint, here’s the actual survey! The results were just as tasty.
KEY RESULTS:
- 83% of customers surveyed said they prefer smart beer flights over traditional beer flights.
- 14% more overall customers took photos of their smart beer flights.
- 20% more people shared their smart beer flight on Untappd and throughout social media.
- 93% said our beer flight paddle’s touchscreen was easy to understand.
- 65% of surveyed customers order beer flights “Every Time” or “Often”.
It’s hard not to notice the intriguing results from this valuable research. The cool part is that there’s even more super interesting data we’re excited to connect you with as you bring smart flights to your brewery, restaurant, taproom or bar. [ORDER NOW!]
It was also absolutely amazing to see live beer flight data flowing into the real-time online dashboard. You can also bet Ben, Ethan and Sinclair enjoyed the craft beer industry’s first smart beer flights served in the wild. Want a fun story? Ask about the Exile’s beer called “Jesus on a Forkilift”…for lunch, haha! One of our favorite quotes came from RJ Tursi, owner of Exile Brewing Co., during the research process as he said:
“People are loving the smart flights, both staff and customers. It’s a kick ass product.”
Along with so much positive feedback, we also identified numerous ways to optimize the overall experience, so we’re proud to share that our team is already working to implement a variety of improvements as we prepare to deliver our first round of pre-orders this Fall!
On behalf of the FliteBrite family, we’d like to thank Kenton, George and James for their commitment to outstanding research. We’d also like to thank Wade Steenhoek and the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business for giving us this opportunity to continue quantifying smart beer flights. Last, but certainly not least, thanks again to RJ and the entire crew at Exile Brewing Co. for being the world’s first establishment to serve a brighter flight of craft beer.
Don’t get left behind.
Contact Us to learn how easy it is to bring smart beer flights to your business!
Thanks to RJ & the entire crew at @ExileBrewingCo, for being first to serve the “next level” of #beerflights!
We’ll be back soon everyone 🍻 pic.twitter.com/BU0JPSFkyO
— FliteBrite (@FliteBrite) October 26, 2016
Have you ever met a wizard?
Ben Sinclair, known on our team just as Sinclair, is the magician behind what makes FliteBrite the smartest way to serve beer flights.
Sinclair has always been into electronics. Sinclair was there when the web first appeared, and has been building the Internet even since. As mobile apps started taking over, Sinclair began creating fun things that brought your smartphone to life. Uppward was an app that allowed you to connect with fellow flyers on the airplane and then came Offspring, a micronetworking app for families to share memorable moments. He would eventually help launch Shift Interactive into a progressive web and mobile app development firm in Iowa, before making a move that would lead him to join the co-founding team at FliteBrite.
Sinclair has been a master at software development since the beginning of time on the Internet, but deep down, he had always wanted to tap into his interests in electronic engineering. FliteBrite’s beautiful balance between intuitive software and interactive hardware was a perfect fit! FliteBrite truly came to life when Sinclair blended his tech-savvy skills with the innovative mind of Ben McDougal and the manufacturing expertise of Ethan Davidson.
You’ve seen our smart beer flight experience, right?
FliteBrite’s interactive touchscreen adds entertaining education to craft beer flights and Sinclair has been the in-house magician behind it all. Sinclair’s sharp focus on optimizing FliteBrite’s user interface and electronic engineering truly puts the “smart” in Smart Flights! His handy work allows our electronic serving system to be ultra fast, easy for anyone and super durable with outstanding battery life.
Along with building so many awesome features and optimizing the FliteBrite platform overall, Sinclair used his wizardry to build FliteBrite’s awesome online dashboard. Whether it’s single-click menu management fueled by Untappd, tracking valuable flight and customer data or slick social sharing tools that tap into the natural virality of the taproom experience, Sinclair has built a powerful platform that allows our customers to unlock a new level of customer connectivity.
Like the rest of the FliteBrite crew, Sinclair is a sharp entrepreneur with tons of interesting hobbies. Besides enjoying a pint of craft beer, Sinclair digs being a Dad, astronomy, fine dining, ham radio, all things Apple, backpacking and the occasional Miami Vice. As our Chief Social Officer, Sinclair keeps our team fresh with good times and tons of laughs.
Sinclair makes FliteBrite special and we’re lucky to have him on our team. His crazy smart development effort has fueled our efforts to provide a new level of entertaining education at breweries, bars, brew pubs and restaurants nationwide.
Have new feature ideas or just want to geek out with good people? Follow Ben Sinclair on Twitter or contact us today!
