# PINtPOINT — Full Content > Find the right pub before the first pint. The complete public content of pintpoint.co.uk assembled for AI-assistant use. PINtPOINT is an independent beer-first pub discovery app launched in 2026. It shows you what's on tap before you arrive, uses a live radar to point you to nearby venues, and lets you filter by beer style. Available on iOS and Android. £3.99/year after a 7-day free trial. No ads, no data selling. Last generated: 2026-04-20 Canonical site: https://pintpoint.co.uk/ Contact: hello@pintpoint.co.uk --- # Homepage Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/ PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots Stop bimbling. Start drinking smarter. Find the right pub before the first pint. Download on the App Store Sideload for Android See All Features 7-day free trial · £3.99/year · iOS and Android In one paragraph What is PINtPOINT? PINtPOINT is a beer-first pub discovery app that shows you what is actually on tap before you arrive. A live radar ranks nearby venues by what they are pouring right now, filterable by beer style, so every suggestion is already relevant to the kind of pint you want next. Currently tracking 1,091+ venues across 40+ countries, with 3,140+ beers matched to tap lists. The pitch in one line: most beer apps help you remember what you drank. PINtPOINT helps you decide what to drink next. What you get. 📡 Live Radar See nearby venues as blips on a live radar. Tap one and PINtPOINT flips into a compass that points you straight there. 🍺 What's On Tap Check tap lists before you walk through the door, so you're not gambling your evening on a chalkboard and a warm hope. 🗺️ Create-a-Crawl Build a custom pub crawl in seconds. Set the distance, number of stops, and route shape, then share it with your group. 🔔 Beer Alerts Watch specific beers and get alerted when they appear at your saved venues. Perfect for chasing seasonal releases and favourites. 🔍 Find Your Kind of Pub Filter by beer style — West Coast IPA, Bitter, Hazy Pale — so every result is already relevant before you tap. Search by name and the closest match appears first. 🃏 Tap Trumps Turn any pub into a shareable card. Stats, top beers, photo. Send it to the group chat before you even arrive. Recently spotted. Live from the PINtPOINT radar — beers confirmed on tap in the last 24 hours. Loading live data… PINtPOINT World A global radar for local pints. While we started in the UK, PINtPOINT is built for the global craft beer traveller. Our live radar spans 40+ countries and counting, ensuring you never have to settle for a mediocre drink, regardless of which continent you're on. Region Coverage Europe Barcelona, Berlin, London, Prague 650+ venues · 2,000+ beers North America Nashville, New York, San Diego 180+ venues · 600+ beers Oceania Christchurch, Melbourne 65+ venues · 250+ beers Asia Singapore, Tokyo 20+ venues · 100+ beers 3,140+ Beers · 1,091+ Venues · 40+ Countries and growing Browse recent venues → From the blog Guides, love letters, essays, notes — browse all → Essay The Drinker's Guide to Hops 30+ varieties, six flavour categories, zero jargon Guide The Chelmsford Beer Mile A live guide to the 9-stop craft crawl Love letter A Love Letter to San Diego How a navy town became IPA Capital of the world Love letter A Love Letter to Melbourne Bar-first, not brewery-first — San Diego's twin Guide How to find beer near you The fastest way, step by step Guide PINtPOINT vs Untappd Which app is for which job Essay Why beer recommenders miss the mark A response to Haley & Ninkasi £3.99/year. Less than half a London pint. Cancel anytime. 👁 … visitors About PINtPOINT Features Screenshots How to find beer near you vs Untappd vs Real Ale Finder Blog FAQ Privacy Policy Contact X Instagram © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # About Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/about-pintpoint.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots The History and Origin of PINtPOINT A craft beer radar. Built to answer one question: where should I go? How it started PINtPOINT began with a simple frustration: standing on a street corner, trying to decide between three pubs, with no way to know which one had anything decent on tap. Generic map searches don't care about beer. Rating apps tell you what you already drank. Nothing answered the question that actually matters: where should I go right now? PINtPOINT was built to answer that question with real data, live accuracy, and a radar interface that makes discovery feel more like an adventure than a spreadsheet. What PINtPOINT is PINtPOINT is an independent craft beer discovery platform. It specialises in live tap list data and radar navigation — tracking 1,091+ venues across 40+ countries. Core features include: Live Radar — a compass-style navigation system that points you to nearby venues Official Tap List Data — see what's pouring before you arrive PINtDEXTER — AI-powered beer recommendations based on your taste profile Create-a-Crawl — build and share custom pub crawl routes Ghost Hunter — explore 500+ closed London pubs with archive photos Tap Trumps — shareable venue stat cards Global Coverage — 40+ countries from the UK to Japan, Brooklyn to Barcelona How it grew PINtPOINT launched in early 2026 on the App Store. It started as a UK-focused pub finder and grew into a global platform tracking thousands of beers across dozens of countries. Whether you're hitting the taprooms of Brooklyn, scouting the bars of Barcelona, or looking for a real ale in Bristol, PINtPOINT provides the same live, high-fidelity data everywhere. Available on PINtPOINT is available on iPhone via the App Store, and on Android as a direct download from pintpoint.co.uk/download. Download on the App Store Home Features Screenshots PINtPOINT vs Untappd Ghost Hunter Troubled Pubs Privacy Policy Contact © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Features Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/features.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots Everything PINtPOINT does No map. No clutter. Just the tools that help you decide where to drink, what's on tap, and what's worth the walk. 🔍 Find & Explore Discover · Radar · Tap Roulette · Venues › ✨ Discover Surface venues you've never visited. Discover searches nearby pubs and bars and shows rich cards with photos, ratings, and live venue details. Add any discovery to your PINtPOINT list with one tap. 📍 Configurable Radius Search within a range that suits you — from a short local wander to a wider destination search. 🟢 Open Now Badges Each discovered venue shows whether it's currently open or closed, plus its Google rating and review count. 🔗 Find on Untappd Tap to search for any discovered venue on Untappd and check their tap list before adding to PINtPOINT. 🍻 Crawl from Discoveries Found a cluster of interesting places? Build a pub crawl directly from your discovered venues. 📡 Radar A live radar sweeps your surroundings and plots nearby venues as colour-coded blips. Tap a blip to lock on — the radar transforms into a live compass pointing you directly at your chosen pub, with real-time distance and bearing. 🔒 Lock-on Navigation Tap any blip to lock on. The display shows bearing, distance, and a compass needle that updates as you move and turn. 🔄 Two Display Modes Nearest venues shows the closest pubs. All within radius shows everything in your chosen search area. 🤏 Pinch & Pan Pinch to zoom your radar range. Two-finger drag to pan. Explore beyond your immediate area without moving. 🗺️ Maps Handoff When locked on, tap the maps button for turn-by-turn directions in Apple Maps or Google Maps. Blip Legend Nearby venue Favourited venue Matches style filter Struggling pub (FPI 30–59) At-risk pub (FPI 60–89) Critical pub (FPI 90+) Ghost pub (closed) 🎰 Tap Roulette Can't decide where to go? Tap Roulette picks a nearby venue at random and sends you there — no overthinking, no committee meeting, just a decision made. Find it on the Venues tab or in Settings. 📍 Radius Control Set how far you're willing to travel. Results are filtered to your chosen range so you won't end up miles away. 🎯 Lock & Go Once a venue is picked, you get the essentials — distance, details, and a one-tap handoff to Maps. 🔄 Spin Again Not feeling it? Spin again and let fate have another go. 🍺 Venues A fully searchable list of nearby venues with photos, ratings, and live tap list data. Search by venue name or beer name. Sort by distance or style match. Filter to find exactly what suits the moment. 🔍 Smart Search Search across venue names and beer names simultaneously. Fuzzy matching means you don't need exact spellings. 📊 Sort Options Sort by distance to find what's close, or by style match when filtering to find venues with the best selection. ❤️ Favourites Heart any venue to save it. Favourited venues show as red blips on the radar so you can always spot your regulars. 📸 Rich Cards Every venue card shows a photo, distance, rating, beer count, and a featured beer pill highlighting what's worth trying. 🍺 Beer Sip or Skip · Head to Head · TUNeDEXTER · PINtDEXTER · Beer Alerts · Beer Can Scan · Venue Detail › 🍺 Sip or Skip Swipe through real beers Tinder-style and tell PINtPOINT what you love. Love IPAs? Hate sours? Prefer session strength? Sip or Skip builds your personal taste profile in minutes. Find it on the Discover → Beers tab or in Settings → My Stuff. 👉 Swipe to Sip or Skip Swipe right (or tap Sip) for beers you'd order. Swipe left (or tap Skip) for ones you'd avoid. Curated cards across 13 styles. ⚡ Instant Profile After 10 swipes, PINtDEXTER has enough signal to start personalising your recommendations. Keep going to sharpen it further. 🔁 Refine Any Time Your taste changes. Run Sip or Skip again to refine your profile — each session improves your recommendations. 🗂️ My Kind of Beer See your full taste profile under Settings → My Stuff. Preferred styles, avoided styles, strength preference, and PINtDEXTER labels — all in one place. 🥊 Head to Head The next generation of taste profiling. Where Sip or Skip asks "would you drink this?" — Head to Head asks "which of these two?" Forced choice, always between two beers of the same style. A West Coast IPA versus a Hazy IPA is meaningful; a Sour versus a Stout is not. 🎯 Pick Your Styles First Choose from 13 styles before you start. No forced IPA-vs-IPA if you don't drink IPA — H2H only matches you on styles you actually like. 🥊 Same-Style Matchups Five pair-choice rounds, always within the same style. Your preference between Punk IPA and Neck Oil reveals sub-style signal Sip or Skip can't capture. 🏆 Champs Per Style See your winners ranked by win percentage. Champion styles are prepended to your taste profile — PINtDEXTER recommendations update instantly. 🔄 Mind Changed? We Notice If a style you voted for was previously in your "avoided" list, it's removed. Your new preference wins. 🎚️ TUNeDEXTER Direct flavour sliders for fine-tuning what "your kind of beer" really means. Five axes (Hoppy, Sweet, Fruity, Malty, Sour) plus Body and Strength. Sits between your picks and PINtDEXTER's recommendations. 📡 Tracks Your Picks Sliders open at positions derived from your Sip or Skip and Head to Head picks — you see your own taste, not a blank template. 🔒 You Save, You Lock The moment you save, your tuning becomes authoritative. PINtDEXTER uses your values; SoS/H2H stop moving the sliders. 🔬 Live Beer DNA As you adjust, a Beer DNA preview tells you which styles your current tuning favours — West Coast IPA, Hazy IPA, Stout, Sour and more. 🎛️ Precision Controls Stepped 0–5 bars for flavour axes. Segmented controls for body (Light / Medium / Full) and strength (Session / Standard / Strong). ⚡ PINtDEXTER PINtDEXTER is PINtPOINT's personal recommendation engine. It blends three signals — Sip or Skip swipes, Head to Head picks, and TUNeDEXTER fine-tuning — with your real scan history to surface the best beer on tap at every venue you visit. Your Best Pint Next. 🎯 Best Pint Next A compact recommendation button on every venue's tap list. Tap to expand and see PINtDEXTER's top pick with confidence level and reasons why. 🧠 Learns From Every Signal Sip or Skip swipes, Head to Head champs, TUNeDEXTER sliders and scanned beers all feed in — earlier signals fill gaps until your scan history builds up. 🚫 Avoids What You Hate Styles you consistently skipped are penalised in the scoring — PINtDEXTER won't keep recommending sours if you always swipe left on them. 💬 Reason Chips Every recommendation comes with short reason chips explaining why that beer was picked — style match, ABV preference, or top-rated at this venue. 🔔 Beer Alerts Never miss your favourite beer. Add beers to your watchlist and PINtPOINT will alert you when they appear on tap at venues you've saved as favourites. Matched against live Untappd tap list data. 📝 Watchlist Build a list of beers you love. Add as many as you want — swipe to remove any you no longer care about. ❤️ Favourited Venue Alerts Alerts are matched against the venues you've saved as favourites — so notifications stay relevant to the places you actually care about. 🔔 Push Notifications Get notified when a watched beer is spotted at one of your saved venues. 📲 Checks on Open Alerts also run when you open the app, so you can quickly see what's appeared since your last visit. 📦 Beer Can Scan Point your camera at the barcode on a can or bottle. PINtPOINT looks it up using the EAN-DB product database and returns the beer name, brewery, and style where available. Cans and bottles only — pump clips aren't scannable. 📷 Instant Barcode Scan Live camera scan reads the barcode instantly. No typing, no searching — point and scan. 🍺 Beer Identification Returns beer name, brewery, and style where available. Some labels won't match — you can fill in the details manually. 🗃️ Save to My Beers Add the scanned beer to your personal collection, edit the details, and track your stash. 📦 Cans & Bottles Only Beer Can Scan works on packaged cans and bottles with barcodes. Pump clip photos can't be scanned. 📋 Venue Detail Tap any venue card to see the full picture — tap list, ratings, distance, navigation, sharing, and more. 🍺 Full Tap List Every beer on tap with style, rating, and ABV. Sort by rating or ABV. See the top-rated beer badge. 🧭 Navigate One tap to open directions in your maps app of choice. See distance from your current location. 📲 Share & QR Generate a QR code for any venue. Share it with friends so they can add it to their PINtPOINT app. 🔗 Untappd Link Jump to the venue's Untappd page to check in, see reviews, and browse the full beer menu. 🗺️ Nights Out Create-a-Crawl · Map View · Sharing › 🗺️ Create-a-Crawl Plan the perfect pub crawl in seconds. Set your starting point, number of stops, maximum gap between venues, and total walking distance. PINtPOINT builds an optimised route using a nearest-next algorithm. 📐 Smart Routing Set 2–8 stops with configurable max gap and total walk distance. The algorithm finds the best route through nearby venues. 🚶 Walk Times Real-time walking time estimates between each stop. See total crawl distance and estimated duration at a glance. ✅ Progress Tracking Mark stops as visited as you go. Resume an active crawl anytime — your progress is saved. 📲 Share with Friends Share your crawl itinerary via any messaging app — venue names, distances, and walk times between each stop. 🗺️ Map View Toggle between list and map with a single tap. Every stop appears as a numbered pin on a dark-styled map with a dashed route line connecting them in order. Your current stop is highlighted. 📍 Open in Google Maps Send the full crawl route to Google Maps with all stops as waypoints — navigate the whole night without leaving your maps app. 📲 Sharing Share venues and crawl routes with friends — no accounts needed, works with any messaging app. 🃏 Tap Trumps Share any venue as a collectible-style card with photo, stats, and PINtPOINT branding. Ghost pubs get a purple card. 📲 Crawl Sharing Share your pub crawl itinerary — venue names, distances, and walk times between stops — via iMessage, WhatsApp, or any app. 🗺️ Google Maps Open any crawl as a multi-stop walking route in Google Maps with one tap. Navigate the whole night from your maps app. ⭐ Google Reviews See and leave Google reviews for any venue directly from its detail page — support the pubs you love. 🏚️ Pub Culture Ghost Hunter · Troubled Pubs › 👻 Ghost Hunter Every street corner was once a pub. Toggle Ghost Hunter and your radar transforms — 500+ closed and demolished pubs appear as purple blips, with the feature primarily focused on London. Tap any ghost to see what it once looked like, and what replaced it. 📸 Then & Now Historical photos alongside current Street View. Tap the venue image to flip between past and present — the same corner, decades apart. 🟣 Purple Blips Ghost pubs appear as solid purple blips on the radar. Many are linked to archive photography and historical notes. 💀 Demolished Mode Filter to show only the pubs that no longer exist at all — not converted, not closed, just gone. 👻 Full Ghost Hunter story → ⚠️ Troubled Pubs Some pubs need your support before it's too late. PINtPOINT uses FPI (Financial Pressure Index) data from ismypubfucked.com to highlight venues under financial strain — from "Feeling It" to "Absolutely F**ked". Visit them while you still can. Fine — rates flat Feeling It — FPI 1–29 Struggling — FPI 30–59 F**ked — FPI 60–99 Absolutely F**ked — FPI 100+ At Risk of Closure The Rose and Crown 2 The Polygon, Clapham Old Town, SW4 F**kedRates +180.0% vs 2023 84/100 FPI At Risk of Closure Crown & Shuttle 226 Shoreditch High St, E1 F**kedRates +158.0% vs 2023 77/100 FPI Under Pressure Bradley's Spanish Bar 42–44 Hanway St, Fitzrovia, W1T StrugglingRates +80.0% vs 2023 48/100 FPI Under Pressure Coach & Horses 29 Greek St, Soho, W1D StrugglingRates +70.6% vs 2023 42/100 FPI 🟠 Amber Radar Blips Struggling pubs show as solid amber. At-risk pubs pulse faster the higher the FPI score. Critical pubs flash purple. 🧭 Lock-On Warning Tap an amber blip — the compass needle turns amber and a flickering warning appears: UNDER PRESSURE, AT RISK, or IN SERIOUS TROUBLE. 📊 Venue FPI Card Every troubled pub page shows FPI score, severity label, and rate change vs 2023 — credited to ismypubfucked.com · VOA data. 🕯️ Full Troubled Pubs story → ⚙️ Manage Add Venue · Customisation · Filters › ➕ Add Venue Found a pub that's not in the database? Add it yourself. Search by name or Untappd URL, or add from your Discover results. PINtPOINT pulls in photos, location data, and tap list details automatically. 🔍 Untappd Search Paste an Untappd venue URL or search by name. PINtPOINT imports the tap list, ratings, and venue details. 📸 Auto Photos Google Places photos are fetched automatically. If the initial fetch fails, photos are lazily loaded when you browse. 🌍 Worldwide Add venues from anywhere in the world. PINtPOINT already covers venues across multiple countries and keeps growing as more places are added. 🎨 Customisation Make PINtPOINT yours. Choose your theme, pick an accent colour, set your preferred units, configure your radar behaviour, and set up Quick Picks for the areas you visit most. 🎨 Themes Multiple colour themes to suit your taste — Teal, Amber, Purple, Blue and more. Every UI element adapts. 📡 Radar Settings Choose between Nearest Venues or All Within Radius mode. Set how many blips to show or the radar range. 📌 Quick Picks Save up to 6 favourite areas (postcodes, neighbourhoods, cities) for instant location switching. 📏 Units Switch between miles and metres. Distance displays across the entire app update instantly. 🎯 Filters Tap the gold magnifying glass on any screen to open the universal filter sheet. Set your destination, radius and beer styles — all from one place, applied across every tab. 📍 Destination Search by postcode or area name, or tap a Quick Pick to jump to your favourite spots instantly. 📏 Radius Six presets from 250 yards to 15 miles. Your selection syncs across the radar, venues and discover tabs. 🍺 Style Filter Multi-select from dozens of styles — IPA, Stout, Lager, Sour, Saison, and more. Long-press any style for a description. 🔍 Consistent One gold magnifying glass, top-left on every screen. Same filters everywhere — no hunting for settings. £3.99/year. Less than half a London pint. 7-day free trial. Annual subscription. No ads. Download on the App Store 7-day free trial · then £3.99/year · No ads Home Screenshots Ghost Mode Troubled Pubs Privacy Policy Contact © 2026 PINtPOINT ↑ --- # FAQ Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/faq.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots Frequently asked. What is PINtPOINT? PINtPOINT is a beer-first pub discovery app that helps people find pubs, bars, and taprooms worth visiting. It shows you what's on tap before you arrive, uses a live radar to point you to nearby venues, and lets you filter by beer style so every result is already relevant. Is PINtPOINT just another pub finder? No. Most pub finders focus on what's closest. PINtPOINT is built around what's actually worth seeking out — better beer, better pubs, better nights out. How does PINtPOINT know what's on tap? PINtPOINT pulls live tap list data from venues that publish their current beers online. When a pub updates its taps, PINtPOINT updates too, so you can see what's pouring before you walk through the door. Can I use PINtPOINT to find real ale pubs? Yes. It's designed to help people discover pubs with character, strong beer reputations, and the kind of atmosphere that makes them worth visiting — whether that's a traditional cask ale pub or a modern taproom. Does PINtPOINT work for craft beer too? Yes. PINtPOINT is just as useful for finding craft beer bars, taprooms, and places with a more modern beer focus. Filter by style — IPA, Pale Ale, Stout, Sour — and every result is relevant before you set off. Can PINtPOINT help me plan a pub crawl? Yes. Create-a-Crawl lets you build a custom route from nearby venues in seconds. Set your stops, maximum distance between them, and share the route with your group. No more leaving it to chance. How is PINtPOINT different from Untappd? Untappd is mainly about tracking and rating beers. PINtPOINT is more about deciding where to go. One helps you remember what you drank. The other helps you find your next pint. How much does PINtPOINT cost? £3.99 per year after a 7-day free trial. No ads, no data selling. That's less than half a London pint for a full year of better pub decisions. What is Ghost Hunter? Ghost Hunter reveals over 500 closed and demolished London pubs on your radar as purple blips. Tap any ghost pub to see archive photos of what it once looked like. It's a pub map with a memory. What is Troubled Pub Mode? Troubled Pub Mode uses FPI (Financial Pressure Index) data to highlight pubs under financial pressure as amber blips. It covers England and Wales and helps you support your local before it's too late. Is PINtPOINT available on Android? PINtPOINT is available on iPhone via the App Store, and on Android as a direct sideload download from pintpoint.co.uk/download. Both platforms run on the same £3.99/year subscription with a 7-day free trial. What cities does PINtPOINT cover? PINtPOINT tracks 1,091+ venues across 40+ countries. Whether you're hitting the taprooms of Brooklyn, scouting the bars of Barcelona, or looking for a real ale in Bristol, PINtPOINT provides the same live, high-fidelity data everywhere. Ghost Hunter focuses on London. Troubled Pub Mode covers England and Wales using VOA rating list data. Can I hide pubs I don't want to see? Yes. If a venue isn't relevant to you, mark it as BARRED. It will still appear in the Venues list with a BARRED stamp, but it will be hidden from the radar and excluded from crawls. Use Favourites for pubs you want more of, and BARRED for the ones you want less of. Home About PINtPOINT Features Screenshots PINtPOINT vs Untappd Privacy Policy Contact © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # How to Find Beer Near You Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/how-to-find-beer-near-you.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots How to Find Beer Near You The fastest way to find good beer near you is to start with a tool that shows you what's actually on tap right now — not just where pubs are on a map. That single shift turns a 20-minute Google Maps scroll into a 30-second decision. A beer finder should show what's on tap now, not just where pubs are. The rest of this page is the practical breakdown: what to use, what to check, and how to avoid the two mistakes most people make (walking into the wrong pub, or giving up and settling for the nearest one). The short answer Use a beer-first pub finder. Check what's on tap. Decide before you leave the house. PINtPOINT is built around exactly this loop: live tap lists from 1,091+ venues across 40+ countries, a radar that ranks pubs by the beer they're pouring right now, and filters for the styles you actually drink. Download PINtPOINT on iOS Step-by-step: five minutes to a better pint Start with a beer-led pub finder, not a map app Generic maps show you where pubs are. To find beer, you need a tool that shows you what's actually on tap at each one. PINtPOINT's radar ranks venues by the beer they're pouring right now, not just by distance. Check the live tap list before you walk in A pub's website can be months out of date. Look at a live tap list — direct venue data or fresh user check-ins — so you know what's pouring today, not last month. Filter by what you actually want to drink If you want a hazy IPA, a crisp lager, a cask bitter, or a sour, filter for it. The best beer apps let you narrow by style, ABV, and freshness rather than forcing you to scroll through every pint in town. Sense-check with a second source Cross-reference with Untappd for recent check-ins, Google reviews for vibe, and the Good Beer Guide for cask-specific venues. Different tools capture different signals — stacking them is better than trusting one. Plan a short crawl rather than betting on one pub If you're in an unfamiliar area, plot two or three venues within a walk of each other. If the first one is quiet or the beer isn't right, the next one is five minutes away. What to look for in a good beer-finder tool Not all beer apps solve the same problem. If "find beer near me" is your actual use case, prioritise tools that have: Live tap lists — not last month's check-ins Beer style filters — hazy IPA, stout, sour, pilsner, cask Freshness indicators — how recently did someone actually confirm that beer was pouring A radar or map view — distance-aware, not buried in text Coverage where you are — UK, US, Europe, or wherever you've travelled to The main tools people use (and what each is actually good at) Most serious beer drinkers use more than one. Here's the honest breakdown of the major options: PINtPOINT Beer-first pub discovery. Live tap lists, radar view, pub crawl planner, PINtDEXTER taste engine for recommendations. Strong globally (40+ countries). See how it compares to Untappd or Real Ale Finder. Untappd The go-to for logging, rating, and checking in on beers you've tried. Huge global check-in database makes it useful for a second opinion on "what's been poured here recently." Weaker for live tap data and venue-first discovery. Good Beer Guide app (CAMRA) The UK cask-ale authority. Curated list of pubs that meet real-ale quality standards. Definitive for traditional pub hunting, less useful for craft keg, international travel, or live tap data. Real Ale Finder Specifically connects real-ale drinkers with pubs selling cask beer. UK-focused, overlaps with Good Beer Guide but with a different contributor network. Google Maps / Apple Maps Fine for "a pub, any pub" but no information about what's actually on tap. Useful as a fallback if you've lost signal and just need the nearest opening hours. How to find beer near you — by use case I want a specific beer style tonight Open PINtPOINT, tap the radar, filter by style (hazy IPA, lager, stout, etc). Venues pouring it right now surface first, ranked by distance and tap-list freshness. I only drink cask real ale Lead with the Good Beer Guide app or Real Ale Finder for curated cask-focused pubs. Cross-check with PINtPOINT if the venue also tracks its tap list — the two together give you quality + live data. I'm travelling abroad and don't know the city This is PINtPOINT's core use case. Live radar works identically in Tokyo, Oslo, Barcelona, or Brooklyn — same 30-second decision loop, different pubs. Untappd's check-in density helps in major cities too. I'm planning a pub crawl Use PINtPOINT's Create-a-Crawl to plot a 3-5 pub route with distance, opening hours, and tap diversity considered. Fallback: pin candidates in Google Maps and walk between them. I just want a decent pint five minutes from here Any beer-first tool beats a map app. Open PINtPOINT, look at what's green-dotted (recent tap activity), pick the closest. Under a minute, rarely wrong. The mistake most people make The biggest time-sink is scrolling through a map app, reading Google reviews of six pubs, and still not knowing what any of them have on tap. By the time you've decided, you could have walked to any of them. Start with the beer, not the building. Pick what you want to drink, then let the tool tell you where it is. A map app tells you where pubs are. A beer-finder tells you which ones are worth the walk. Frequently asked questions What's the best way to find beer near me? A beer-led pub finder like PINtPOINT is the fastest route — it shows live tap lists for pubs, taprooms, and bars near you, so you can see what's actually pouring before you leave the house. Generic map apps only show where pubs are, not what's in the fridge or on the handpump. What's the best app for finding craft beer? For craft-specific discovery, PINtPOINT surfaces venues by their live tap list and beer style (hazy IPA, sour, stout, lager), not just their name. Untappd is strong for logging and rating beers you've already tried. Most serious craft drinkers use both: PINtPOINT to decide where to go, Untappd to remember what they drank. What's the best app for finding real ale? CAMRA's Good Beer Guide app is the authority for UK real ale pubs. PINtPOINT covers cask alongside keg and international beer, with live tap list data where the venue publishes one. If your priority is cask-only, Good Beer Guide is cleaner; if you also want to see what's on keg and plan around both, PINtPOINT is broader. How do I find beer near me without downloading an app? Search pintpoint.co.uk/pubs/ to browse venues with live tap lists by name, or use Google Maps' "pubs" search filtered by rating. For a faster signal on what's actually pouring today, a dedicated beer-first tool is significantly more reliable than a general map. Why don't standard map apps work well for finding beer? Map apps rank venues by distance, popularity, and review count — none of which tell you whether the beer is any good or what's on today. A beer-first tool ranks by what's pouring, the freshness of the tap data, and your stated beer preferences, so you don't waste an evening on a pub with a disappointing lineup. How do I find beer near me abroad? This is where most UK-centric tools fall over. PINtPOINT currently tracks over 1,091 venues across 40+ countries — from London to Tokyo, Melbourne to Oslo — with the same live tap list and radar view everywhere. Untappd's global footprint is also strong for check-in data. Pairing the two works well when you don't know the city. Related reading PINtPOINT vs Untappd — which app is better for finding pubs? PINtPOINT vs Real Ale Finder — cask, craft, and what to use when All PINtPOINT features Browse live tap lists by venue Finding beer near you is a problem that a beer-first tool solves in seconds. Start there, check what's actually on tap, and let the map apps stick to finding the takeaway on the way home. Download on the App Store Home Features Screenshots Ghost Hunter Troubled Pubs Privacy Policy Contact X / Twitter Instagram Untappd, CAMRA Good Beer Guide, and Real Ale Finder are trademarks of their respective owners. This page is an independent comparison intended to help drinkers pick the right tool for their needs. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # PINtPOINT vs Untappd Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/vs-untappd.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots PINtPOINT vs Untappd Most beer apps help you remember what you drank. PINtPOINT helps you decide what to drink next. If you want to rate what you've already drunk, Untappd is excellent. If you want to work out where to go, what's on tap, and which pub is actually worth the walk, PINtPOINT is built for that job. Why people look for an Untappd alternative Untappd is one of the best-known beer apps in the world, especially for check-ins, ratings, wish lists, and keeping a record of what you've tried. But many drinkers are looking for something slightly different. They don't want another beer diary. They want a better way to decide where to go for a pint. That's where PINtPOINT comes in. PINtPOINT is a beer-first pub finder designed to help people discover pubs, bars, and taprooms in a more useful way. Instead of focusing on what you drank last week, it focuses on what you might want to drink next — and where you should go to find it. The short version Use Untappd if you want to: Log beers you've tried Rate and review individual beers Track your own drinking history Follow friends and their check-ins Use PINtPOINT if you want to: Find pubs worth visiting See what's on tap before you walk in Discover nearby bars and taprooms Plan a pub crawl Choose the right pub, not just the nearest one Key differences: PINtPOINT vs Untappd Feature Untappd PINtPOINT Official Tap List Data No — user check-ins only Yes — live tap lists from venues Real-Time Beer Styles & ABV Only from user submissions Yes — Hazy IPA, Stout, Sour, etc. Venue Discovery Radar No Yes — live compass + radar Pub Crawl Planning No Yes — Create-a-Crawl Beer Check-Ins & Ratings Yes — core feature No — discovery-focused Social Feed & Friends Yes — activity feed No — pub-focused, not social AI Beer Recommendations No Yes — PINtDEXTER taste engine Global Coverage Yes — user-generated Yes — 40+ countries, 1,091+ venues What makes PINtPOINT different? Most pub and beer apps answer one of two questions: What have I already had? or What pub is nearest to me? PINtPOINT is built around a better question: Where should I actually go next? That means the app is designed around beer-led discovery, venue selection, and pub exploration. It is especially useful for people who care about cask ale, craft beer, IPA, pub atmosphere, and whether a place is genuinely worth their time. Does PINtPOINT provide specific beer data? Yes. Unlike generic maps, PINtPOINT features official tap list data and Tap Trumps stats. Users can see real-time ABV, beer styles (e.g., Hazy IPA, Pastry Stout), and freshness scores for specific brews. While Untappd focuses on personal logs, PINtPOINT focuses on finding the exact beer in your glass right now. Is PINtPOINT better than Untappd? It depends what you need. If your main goal is tracking beer, checking in, rating pints, and keeping a record, Untappd is probably the better fit. If your goal is finding a pub, seeing what is on tap, and making a better decision before you set off, PINtPOINT is the better tool. Untappd is for remembering. PINtPOINT is for deciding. Best Untappd alternative for finding pubs If you're searching for an Untappd alternative because you want help finding pubs rather than logging beers, PINtPOINT is built for that specific use case. It's designed for: Pub lovers Craft beer drinkers Real ale fans People planning pub crawls People trying to avoid wasting an evening on the wrong place The ultimate travel companion Untappd works well at home, where you already know your local pubs. But PINtPOINT was built for when you don't know the area. Whether you're hitting the taprooms of Brooklyn, scouting the bars of Barcelona, or looking for a real ale in Bristol, PINtPOINT provides the same live, high-fidelity data everywhere. Our radar currently spans 1,091+ venues across 40+ countries — from London to Tokyo, from Melbourne to Oslo. That's the difference between a beer diary and a beer discovery tool. One helps you log where you've been. The other helps you find somewhere worth going — wherever in the world you are. Frequently asked questions Is PINtPOINT a beer rating app? No. PINtPOINT is focused on pub discovery and what to drink next, not on rating and reviewing beers. Can I use PINtPOINT to see what's on tap? Yes. One of the key ideas behind PINtPOINT is helping people see what's on tap before they walk into a pub. Is PINtPOINT good for real ale and craft beer? Yes. PINtPOINT is designed for drinkers who care about beer quality, venue choice, and finding places worth seeking out. Is PINtPOINT trying to replace Untappd? Not entirely. The two apps do different jobs. Untappd is stronger for beer logging and ratings. PINtPOINT is stronger for pub discovery and deciding where to go next. Is PINtPOINT better than Untappd? It depends what you need. If your main goal is tracking beer, checking in, and rating pints, Untappd is the better fit. If your goal is finding a pub, seeing what is on tap, and making a better decision before you set off, PINtPOINT is the better tool. Untappd is for remembering. PINtPOINT is for deciding. If you want a beer app that helps you remember what you drank, Untappd is still a strong choice. If you want a beer-first pub finder that helps you work out what is worth the walk, try PINtPOINT. Download on the App Store Home Features Screenshots Ghost Hunter Troubled Pubs Privacy Policy Contact X / Twitter Instagram Untappd is a trademark of its respective owner. This page is an independent comparison intended to help users choose the right tool for their needs. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # PINtPOINT vs Real Ale Finder Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/vs-real-ale-finder.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots PINtPOINT vs Real Ale Finder Real Ale Finder is built for cask. PINtPOINT is built for every pint. Both apps help you find beer, but they solve different sides of the same problem. Real Ale Finder focuses tightly on UK cask real ale. PINtPOINT covers cask alongside keg, craft, and international beer — with live tap lists and a global radar. The short version Use Real Ale Finder if you want to: Focus exclusively on UK cask real ale Find pubs curated by a real-ale-first community Stick to traditional British pub discovery Use PINtPOINT if you want to: See the full tap list — cask, keg, craft, lager, sour, stout Find beer beyond the UK (currently 40+ countries, 1,091+ venues) Plan pub crawls, filter by style, and use a live radar Get taste-led recommendations from the PINtDEXTER engine See freshness indicators for recent tap activity Key differences: PINtPOINT vs Real Ale Finder Feature Real Ale Finder PINtPOINT UK Cask Real Ale Focus Yes — core remit Covered alongside other styles Keg & Craft Beer Limited Yes — full tap list International Coverage UK only 40+ countries, 1,091+ venues Live Tap List Data Cask pump data where published All tap lines, live where available Beer Style Filters Cask-focused Hazy IPA, Lager, Stout, Sour, Cask & more Venue Discovery Radar No Yes — live compass + radar Pub Crawl Planner No Yes — Create-a-Crawl AI Taste Recommendations No Yes — PINtDEXTER Freshness Indicators Implicit via cask turnover Explicit per beer on the tap list If your only beer is cask If you genuinely only drink UK cask real ale and don't want anything else in the way, Real Ale Finder is a focused, purpose-built tool. CAMRA's Good Beer Guide app is the other strong option for the same audience. PINtPOINT doesn't try to out-cask a cask-only app. What it does do is show cask alongside the rest of the tap list, so you can see the full picture at any venue — useful when you're out with friends who don't all drink the same way. If you drink widely — cask, keg, craft, lager This is where PINtPOINT's beer-first model pays off. The radar ranks venues by their full live tap list, and style filters mean you can search for a hazy IPA and a cask bitter in the same session. You're not locked into one category. If you travel Real Ale Finder is explicitly UK-focused. The moment you leave the country, you're back to Google. PINtPOINT works identically in 40+ countries — same radar, same live tap data, same style filters. If you're a beer drinker who travels, that's the single biggest gap it fills. Real Ale Finder tells you where the cask is. PINtPOINT tells you what's actually on — here, there, or abroad. Using both together Plenty of UK real-ale drinkers use both apps without friction. Real Ale Finder (or the CAMRA Good Beer Guide) for curated cask-first pubs; PINtPOINT for live data, broader style coverage, and anywhere you travel. They answer complementary questions — one says "this pub is known for its cask," the other says "here's what's on the bar right now." Is PINtPOINT better than Real Ale Finder? It depends what you need. If you exclusively drink UK cask real ale and stay in the UK, Real Ale Finder is a tighter, cask-first experience. If you drink across styles, care about what's on keg as well as cask, or ever leave the UK, PINtPOINT is the broader tool. Frequently asked questions Is PINtPOINT a real ale app? Partly. PINtPOINT shows cask real ale alongside keg and craft, so if a pub is pouring a cask bitter, it will surface. If you exclusively care about real ale, a cask-only tool like Real Ale Finder or CAMRA's Good Beer Guide is more focused. PINtPOINT is better when you want to see the whole tap list. Is Real Ale Finder better than PINtPOINT? For UK cask-only drinking, Real Ale Finder is a tight, purpose-built tool. For anyone who also drinks craft keg, lager, sours, or international beer — or who travels abroad — PINtPOINT is more useful because it covers the full tap list and works globally. Does PINtPOINT work outside the UK? Yes. PINtPOINT currently tracks 1,091+ venues across 40+ countries, with the same live radar and tap list view in Tokyo, Oslo, Barcelona or Brooklyn as in London. Real Ale Finder is UK-only by design. Can I find cask beer on PINtPOINT? Yes. Where a venue publishes its cask handpulls, they appear in the tap list alongside keg and packaged beer. The app doesn't filter out cask — it treats it as one style category among many. Should I use both PINtPOINT and Real Ale Finder? Many UK real-ale drinkers do exactly this. Real Ale Finder / CAMRA Good Beer Guide for curated cask-first pubs; PINtPOINT for live tap data, broader style coverage, trip planning, and travel. They answer different questions. If cask real ale in the UK is your entire beer world, Real Ale Finder is a strong pick. If you want a single tool that covers every pint — cask, keg, craft, lager, international — try PINtPOINT. Download on the App Store Home Features Screenshots Ghost Hunter Troubled Pubs Privacy Policy Contact X / Twitter Instagram Real Ale Finder and CAMRA Good Beer Guide are trademarks of their respective owners. This page is an independent comparison intended to help drinkers pick the right tool for their needs. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Ghost Hunter Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/ghost.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots 👻 Ghost Hunter A pub map with a memory. PINtPOINT doesn't just show what's still open. It also reveals the pubs that vanished, were demolished, or quietly slipped away. Turn on Ghost Hunter and London fills with purple blips from another era. Lost pubs of London 📸 Then The Underwriter City of London — a proper City boozer 📍 Now The Underwriter Now a Costa. Of course it is. 📸 Then Cantaloupe Shoreditch — that red facade was unmistakable 📍 Now Cantaloupe Under scaffolding. The red facade is being erased. 📸 Then The Crispin City of London — suits, pints, and a pool bar downstairs 📍 Now The Crispin Broadgate redeveloped. The pool table didn't survive. Photos: Ewan Munro · Street View: Google ↑ Click a photo to flip between then and now How it works 🟣 Purple Blips Ghost pubs appear as solid purple blips on the radar. 327 with archive photos. Toggle in Settings → Pub Culture. 📸 Then & Now Historical photos alongside current Street View. Tap the venue image to flip between past and present — the same corner, decades apart. 💀 Demolished Mode Filter to show only the pubs that no longer exist at all — not converted, not closed, just gone. A map of what London lost. Radar Blip Guide 🔴 At-risk ⚡ Critical 💀 Demolished 🟣 Ghost pub 🟢 Open pub 🟠 Troubled 500+ Ghost pubs mapped 327 With archive photos 71 Demolished forever Find the ghosts in your city. Ghost Hunter is included in PINtPOINT. 7-day free trial, then £3.99/year. Download PINtPOINT Home Features Privacy Policy Screenshots Contact © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Troubled Pub Mode Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/fpi.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots 🕯️ Troubled Pub Mode Last Orders. PINtPOINT highlights pubs under financial pressure using real business rates data. Amber blips on your radar that pulse harder the worse the outlook. Visit them while you still can. The FPI Scale — Financial Pressure Index FineFPI 0–9 · Rates stable Feeling ItFPI 10–29 · Modest increase StrugglingFPI 30–59 · Significant pressure FuckedFPI 60–89 · At risk of closure Absolutely FuckedFPI 90+ · In serious trouble Real London Pubs Under Pressure At Risk of Closure The Rose & Crown 2 The Polygon, Clapham Old Town, SW4 Fucked Rates +180% vs 2023 84/100 At Risk of Closure Crown & Shuttle 226 Shoreditch High St, E1 Fucked Rates +158% vs 2023 77/100 Under Pressure Bradley's Spanish Bar 42–44 Hanway St, Fitzrovia, W1T Struggling Rates +80% vs 2023 48/100 Under Pressure Coach & Horses 29 Greek St, Soho, W1D Struggling Rates +71% vs 2023 42/100 FPI data: ismypubfucked.com by @bjhguerin · VOA rating list data How it works in PINtPOINT 🟠 Amber Radar Blips Troubled pubs appear as amber blips on your radar. The higher the FPI score, the faster they pulse. Instantly visible alongside your regular teal venue blips. 🧭 Lock-On Warning Tap an amber blip and the compass needle turns amber. A flickering warning appears: UNDER PRESSURE, AT RISK, or IN SERIOUS TROUBLE. 📊 Venue FPI Card Every troubled pub's detail page shows its FPI score, severity label, and how much business rates changed vs 2023. Fully attributed to the original data sources. 🔍 Filter & Sort Toggle Troubled Pub Mode in Settings → Pub Culture to show only at-risk pubs in your area. Why it matters The 2023 revaluation of business rates hit London pubs hard. Some saw increases of over 100%. The pubs that survive the next two years will be the ones that keep getting footfall. PINtPOINT can't fix business rates. But it can put the right pub in front of the right person at the right time. 2,400+ London pubs closed since 2001 180% Worst rate increase vs 2023 1 pint Can make a difference 120+ Venues with FPI data 5 Severity levels Live VOA-sourced data Make your next pint count. Troubled Pub Mode is included in PINtPOINT. 7-day free trial, then £4.99 one-time unlock. Download PINtPOINT Home Features Privacy Policy Screenshots Contact © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Android download Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/download ← pintpoint.co.uk Sideload for Android. Direct download from here — no Play Store, no tracking, no adverts. Takes about a minute. PINtPOINT for Android, in short PINtPOINT for Android is available as a direct APK download from this page. It includes the same beer radar, live tap lists, pub crawl planner, beer alerts, and taste profiling as the iPhone app, with a 7-day free trial and a £3.99/year subscription. Annual Subscription Same price as iOS. 7-day free trial, then £3.99/year. Cancel anytime. £3.99 /year 7-day trial Every premium feature, for as long as you’re subscribed Personalised Best Pint Next recommendations Minimum rating filter + tap history Full Sip or Skip taste profiling Cancel from your receipt email or in Settings → Manage Subscription Subscribe — £3.99/year After payment you’ll get a 32-character license key by email. Paste it into Settings → Redeem License Key in the app. Renewals keep the same key — redeem once and you’re done. Download the APK Latest version hosted here. 7-day free trial on first install — no payment taken upfront. Download PINtPOINT.apk Version 1.9.0 · 141 MB How to install Tap Download PINtPOINT.apk above Your browser will warn you the file "may harm your device" — it won’t, but Google shows that message for every non-Play install. Tap Download anyway. Open the APK from your Downloads Notification bar or Files app → Downloads → tap PINtPOINT.apk. Allow install from this source Android prompts "For your security, your phone isn’t allowed to install unknown apps from this source." Tap Settings → toggle Allow on for Chrome (or whichever browser). Back out and open the APK again. Install Tap Install → Done. PINtPOINT is now in your app drawer. Redeem your license Open PINtPOINT → Settings → Redeem License Key → paste the 32-character key from your email. Auto-updates: since PINtPOINT isn’t on the Play Store, Android won’t auto-update it. We push UI & feature updates silently over-the-air, but roughly twice a year we’ll release a new APK — we’ll nudge you from inside the app when that happens. Why side-load? Google Play requires publishing developer contact info (home address, phone number) on every app’s public listing. That’s a non-starter for a solo developer. Side-loading lets us deliver the app directly without forcing PII disclosure. We charge the same £3.99/year on Android as on iOS. Android FAQ Is PINtPOINT available on Android? Yes. PINtPOINT is available on Android as a direct APK download from pintpoint.co.uk/download. It is not currently distributed through Google Play. How do I install the PINtPOINT Android APK? Download the APK from this page, open it from your Downloads folder, allow installs from your browser when Android asks, then tap Install. Is PINtPOINT on Google Play? No. The Android version is distributed directly as an APK because Google Play requires public developer contact details on app listings. How much does PINtPOINT cost on Android? PINtPOINT for Android has a 7-day free trial, then costs £3.99 per year. It uses the same subscription price as the iPhone version. Is the Android version the same as iPhone? The Android version includes the core PINtPOINT features: live beer radar, tap lists, pub discovery, pub crawl planning, beer alerts, and taste profiling. Why does Android ask me to allow unknown apps? Android shows this warning for apps installed outside Google Play. To install PINtPOINT, allow installs from the browser or Files app you used to download the APK. © 2026 PINtPOINT · Privacy · hello@pintpoint.co.uk --- # Venues index Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/pubs/ PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots Browse Recent Venues Beer-led venue pages and live tap lists from pubs, bars, taprooms, and breweries tracked by PINtPOINT. Find pubs by what they are pouring, not just where they are. PINtPOINT tracks live tap lists and beer-focused venue data so you can compare pubs, bars, taprooms, and breweries before you walk through the door. These public venue pages are a sample of the places PINtPOINT watches across the UK, Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. Use this page to browse recent venues, then open the app for the full radar, beer-style filters, saved favourites, pub crawls, and alerts when a beer you care about appears nearby. Looking for a broader guide? Start with how to find beer near you, compare PINtPOINT vs Untappd, or download PINtPOINT for Android and iPhone. Check the tap list first Each venue page is built around beer discovery: what is on tap, what styles appear there, and whether the pub is worth the walk for the pint you want now. Plan by city or neighbourhood Use venue pages to compare pubs in places like London, Chelmsford, Barcelona, Melbourne, New York, and Tokyo before turning the app into a live crawl planner. Find beer when travelling PINtPOINT tracks venues across 40+ countries, so the same beer-led search works at home, on a city break, or when you land somewhere with no local pub knowledge. Go beyond generic maps Search engines can tell you what is nearby. PINtPOINT helps answer the better question: which nearby pub, bar, brewery, or taproom is pouring something worth choosing? Recent tracked venues Radio City Social Chelmsford › The Rake London › Capitan Amargo Granada › The Ale House Chelmsford › Harlem Public New York › The Kernel Brewery London › Sherlock Holmes London › DC Tap House Cupertino › The White Swan Market Rasen › Mad Island CAPITOL Palma › Põrgu Tallinn › Broadway Brewhouse Downtown Nashville › The Crafty Tap Christchurch › Beer Corner USA Omaha › Yard House Kansas City › Moody Goose Brewery Braintree › Bar Arbolada Oklahoma City › The Local Taphouse Melbourne › Boilermaker House Melbourne › EVGR Pub & Beer Garden Stanford › These are a sample of venues tracked by PINtPOINT. Download the app for the full live radar. pintpoint.co.uk · © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Blog: The Drinker's Guide to Hops Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/blog/hops-what-each-one-tastes-like.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots Essay12 April 2026 · Reference The Drinker's Guide to Hops: What Each Variety Actually Tastes Like There are dozens of hop varieties in regular commercial use, hundreds if you count the experimental ones, and a vocabulary for describing them that the American beer writer Jeff Alworth has publicly given up on. The lexicon he cites — Georg Drexler's taxonomy — has twelve flavour categories and 107 individual descriptors. Alworth's verdict, in a 2020 Beervana essay: "I still don't have a satisfying answer. How do we discuss hops using a language we all understand?" This page is an attempt. It's drinker-first, not brewer-first. It organises the hops you're most likely to meet on a UK or European bar by what they actually taste like — collapsing Drexler's twelve categories into six that a person at a pint can hold in their head, then describing the thirty-odd hops that matter in plain English. It's not a replacement for Beer Maverick, which is the canonical brewer's reference and has every data field a recipe formulator could want. It's not a replacement for Yorkshire Craft Beers' profiles, which are sharper on recommended brewing stage. It's a companion to both, aimed squarely at the person looking at a pint glass and trying to work out what it's trying to tell them. Brewers describe hops by what they put in. Drinkers need to describe them by what they take out. On this page Why hops taste like anything The six flavour categories How to taste a hop The American C-hops Modern American (tropical) hops English hops Continental noble hops Southern hemisphere hops Newer / experimental Which styles showcase which hops Frequently asked questions Why hops taste like anything A hop cone is a flower containing three compound families that matter for flavour: Alpha acids — what brewers isomerise during a hot boil to produce bitterness. More alpha means more bittering potential. This is what makes a West Coast IPA taste bitter. Essential oils — volatile aromatic compounds (myrcene, humulene, linalool, geraniol, and dozens of others) that produce pine, citrus, floral, herbal and spicy aromas. These are delicate: a long boil drives them off, so brewers who want aroma add hops late in the boil or as cold dry-hop additions after fermentation. Thiols — sulfur-bearing compounds that produce the intensely tropical, "juicy", guava / passionfruit / grapefruit character of modern hops like Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy. Thiol biotransformation during fermentation explains why the same hops taste noticeably different when used in a NEIPA versus a West Coast IPA. If you've ever wondered why the same hop can be described as "piney" by one brewer and "tropical" by another, this is the mechanism: different brewing processes pull different compounds to the foreground. The variety supplies the palette; the brewer chooses which colours to use. The six flavour categories Alworth's complaint is real: no drinker can hold 107 descriptors in their head. But you can hold six. Citrus Grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime, tangerine. Bright, zesty, often pith-driven. The calling card of American hops. Tropical Mango, passionfruit, pineapple, guava, lychee. Juicier than citrus. Thiol-forward; dominant in modern IPAs. Pine & resin Pine needle, cedar, resin, "dank" (cannabis-adjacent). The classic West Coast IPA backbone. Stone fruit & berry Peach, apricot, blueberry, strawberry. Softer, rounder, more typical in hazy and pale-ale styles. Floral & herbal Rose, jasmine, tea, hay, lavender. Delicate, restrained. Common in English ales and noble-hop lagers. Earthy & spicy Tobacco, pepper, clove, hedgerow, wet forest. Traditional. Found in English bitters, farmhouse ales, Czech pilsners. Most hops cover two or three of these registers simultaneously. Centennial is primarily citrus with pine support. Citra is tropical with a citrus backbone. East Kent Goldings is floral with earthy/spicy undertones. A given beer typically foregrounds one category but carries residuals from the others — which is where the "this tastes like a mango-pine-peach thing" sensation in your glass comes from. How to taste a hop A brief, practical method that works on any beer in front of you: Smell first, twice. First sniff is registration — just "hops." Second sniff, try to place it in one of the six categories. Is it citrus-bright or tropical-juicy? Pine-resinous or floral-delicate? Take a small first sip and notice the bitterness position. Up front and sharp (American style)? Mid-palate and soft (English/German)? Lingering and dry (West Coast IPA)? Absent (hazy NEIPA)? Breathe out through your nose after swallowing. The retronasal aroma is where most hop flavour actually lives — you're tasting volatile oils rising from the back of your throat as they warm. Compare to a reference. If you know what Cascade tastes like, you can anchor everything else off it. If you don't, start with a Sierra Nevada Pale. You won't identify every variety this way — professional brewers often can't, blind — but you will reliably place a beer in one of the six flavour families, which is 95% of what knowing your hops is actually for. The American C-hops The foundation of modern craft beer. Four cultivars whose names all start with C, all released or popularised in the 1970s–90s, collectively responsible for the West Coast IPA and everything downstream of it. CascadeUSA · 1972 The foundational American hop. Grapefruit, pine, a light floral edge. Moderate bitterness, moderate intensity. If a beer tastes like "American craft beer", Cascade is why. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the reference. Primary categories: Citrus · Pine & resin · Alpha: 4.5–7% CentennialUSA · 1990 Often described as "super Cascade": bigger grapefruit, cleaner pine, higher bitterness. Cornerstone of Founders Centennial IPA and the 2000s West Coast IPA canon. Punchier than Cascade but carries the same genetic handwriting. Primary categories: Citrus · Pine & resin · Alpha: 9–11.5% ChinookUSA · 1985 Pine-forward, with grapefruit pith and a distinctive spicy / peppery edge. More aggressive than Cascade. Often the bittering hop in West Coast IPAs that then use Cascade or Centennial for late aroma. Primary categories: Pine & resin · Earthy & spicy · Alpha: 12–14% Columbus (CTZ)USA · 1990s "Dank" is the defining word here — resin, cannabis, pungent pine. Very high alpha acid, so primarily used for bittering. Stone's core range leaned heavily on Columbus for that distinctive aggressive-resinous West Coast signature. Primary categories: Pine & resin · Alpha: 14–18% Modern American (tropical) hops The second wave. Released from 2007 onwards, these varieties shifted the IPA conversation from grapefruit-and-pine toward tropical-fruit-juice. The rise of the New England / Hazy IPA in the mid-2010s was largely a rise of these hops, used in dry-hop-heavy, biotransformation-friendly processes. CitraUSA · 2007 The hop that changed the conversation. Intensely tropical — mango, passionfruit, guava, lychee — with a bright citrus backbone. Tolerates huge dry-hop charges without turning vegetal. The signature hop of hazy IPA worldwide. Kernel Citra IPA is a good UK reference. Primary categories: Tropical · Citrus · Alpha: 11–13% MosaicUSA · 2012 A Citra descendant with added complexity — blueberry, stone fruit, pine, tropical fruit, a characteristic "earthiness" at higher rates. Harder to dose than Citra (over-hopped Mosaic tastes bitter and one-note) but capable of layered, complex aroma when used well. Primary categories: Tropical · Stone fruit · Pine · Alpha: 11–13.5% SimcoeUSA · 2000 Split personality. In some uses it's piney and resinous like a C-hop; in others it pushes passionfruit and apricot. "Cat piss" is not a slur — it's a specific Simcoe aromatic descriptor that drinkers either love or hate. Russian River Pliny the Elder's spine. Primary categories: Pine & resin · Tropical · Stone fruit · Alpha: 12–14% AmarilloUSA · 2000 Orange citrus, floral, a touch of stone fruit. Gentler and more aromatic than Columbus or Chinook. Three Floyds Zombie Dust is the reference — a beer that's essentially a love letter to Amarillo. Primary categories: Citrus · Floral · Stone fruit · Alpha: 8–11% StrataUSA · 2016 Newer, increasingly on every good brewery's dry-hop schedule. Passionfruit, strawberry, cannabis resin. Pushes further into the "dank-tropical" corner than Mosaic. Breweries like Verdant (UK) and Great Notion (US) use it heavily. Primary categories: Tropical · Pine & resin · Alpha: 11–13% English hops The deep heritage end of the map. English varieties define the classic bitter, pale ale, mild and porter traditions. Flavour register: earthy, herbal, floral, marmalade-and-tobacco. Not flashy. Capable of astonishing subtlety when used with a light hand. East Kent Goldings (EKG)England · 1790s The definitive English aroma hop. Floral, honeyed, orange-marmalade, a whisper of tobacco. Traditional in best bitters and pale ales. Fuller's London Pride is the quintessential EKG beer. Restrained and elegant; if a UK cask ale is doing subtle aromatic work, it's probably on EKG. Primary categories: Floral · Earthy & spicy · Alpha: 4–6.5% FugglesEngland · 1875 Earthy, woody, minty, hedgerow. The workhorse of English brewing from the late 19th century onwards. Deeper and more rustic than EKG. Common in porters, stouts, and traditional bitters. Primary categories: Earthy & spicy · Floral & herbal · Alpha: 3.5–5.5% ChallengerEngland · 1972 More assertive than Fuggles or EKG — moderate bitterness, cedar, green tea, a touch of orange peel. A popular bittering hop across modern English ales; Thornbridge Jaipur uses it alongside American hops to bridge the two traditions. Primary categories: Earthy & spicy · Citrus · Alpha: 6.5–8.5% Bramling CrossEngland · 1927 The one genuine surprise in the English catalogue. Blackcurrant, loganberry, almost jammy. An EKG descendant that wandered off into fruit territory. Increasingly turning up in modern English pale ales by brewers wanting fruit character without the Citra accent. Primary categories: Stone fruit & berry · Earthy · Alpha: 6–8% Continental noble hops Four traditional European varieties that produce elegant, low-intensity aromatic work at the heart of classic lagers and Belgian ales. Low alpha acid, high essential oil complexity. "Noble" is a historical designation that has stuck. Saaz (Žatec)Czech Republic · medieval The hop of Czech pilsner. Soft, floral, spicy — clove and fresh-cut hay with a delicate herbal finish. Pilsner Urquell's signature. Saaz doesn't bitter aggressively; it gives snap and elegance, which is why Czech pilsners are so distinctive. Primary categories: Floral · Earthy & spicy · Alpha: 3–4.5% Hallertauer MittelfrühGermany · pre-1800s The backbone of German helles, Munich lager and many Belgian witbiers. Slightly herbal, slightly floral, minimally assertive. Doing almost nothing well, which is hard to overstate as a skill. Primary categories: Floral & herbal · Earthy · Alpha: 3–5.5% TettnangerGermany · 1800s Clean, mild, floral, a touch of fruit. Similar territory to Hallertau but with more delicate fruit character — think white grape, hay, elderflower. Common in Belgian pale ales and German pilsners. Primary categories: Floral · Herbal · Alpha: 3.5–5.5% Spalter SpaltGermany · medieval The least-known of the four nobles internationally, but cherished in Franconian breweries. Earthy, herbal, peppery. Often used in altbier and Munich-style lagers. Primary categories: Earthy & spicy · Herbal · Alpha: 2.5–5% Southern hemisphere hops New Zealand and Australia produce some of the most distinctive modern hops — grown in isolated breeding programmes with quite different flavour signatures from the American tropicals. These turn up constantly on dry-hopped pales, NEIPAs and hoppy lagers. Nelson SauvinNew Zealand · 2000 White wine grapes, specifically Sauvignon Blanc (the name is literal). Gooseberry, passion fruit, fresh herbs. Unlike anything else on this list. When you taste it for the first time you'll know immediately — it's the "is this a beer or a wine?" hop. Primary categories: Tropical · Stone fruit · Floral · Alpha: 12–13% MotuekaNew Zealand · 2000 Lemon and lime, mandarin, a clean floral lift. Popular in crispy hoppy lagers and pale ales where brewers want zest without the heavy tropical Citra signature. Pernicious Weed (8 Wired) is a strong showcase. Primary categories: Citrus · Floral · Alpha: 6.5–7.5% RiwakaNew Zealand · 1997 Intense grapefruit, pink grapefruit specifically — more than Cascade, more than Centennial. Small harvests make Riwaka scarce and premium-priced. When it's used well (Kernel, Garage Project) it's instantly recognisable. Primary categories: Citrus · Tropical · Alpha: 4.5–6.5% GalaxyAustralia · 2009 Peach, passionfruit, citrus. Extremely high essential oil levels (among the highest of any hop) give Galaxy an intensity that cuts through even muddy hazy IPAs. Balter XPA is a good Australian reference. Primary categories: Tropical · Stone fruit · Citrus · Alpha: 13–15% Vic SecretAustralia · 2013 Pine, mango, dank. Similar family to Galaxy but with a more resinous pine edge. Increasingly common in modern UK and European IPAs — Verdant, Deya, and Track all use it regularly. Primary categories: Tropical · Pine & resin · Alpha: 14–17% Newer and experimental Hop breeding is moving fast. These are varieties that have emerged in the past 5-10 years and are reshaping what certain styles taste like. SabroUSA · 2018 Coconut. Actually coconut. Also cream, mint, stone fruit and citrus, but first-time drinkers always notice the coconut. A polarising hop — when it works (Stillwater's Extra Extra, some Modern Times lineage) it's genuinely novel; when overused it tastes like suntan lotion. Primary categories: Tropical (weirder register) · Alpha: 13–17% HBC 586USA · 2020s Named numerically until it earns a trademark. Intense melon, stone fruit, peach, a strawberry note. Still in limited release; increasingly showing up as a feature hop in single-hop release series by curious brewers. Primary categories: Stone fruit · Tropical · Alpha: ~11% EclipseAustralia · 2020 Mandarin, grapefruit, pine — almost as if Galaxy and a classic American C-hop had a child. Sits between the tropical Australian register and the cleaner West Coast style. Balter and Stone & Wood use it in flagship releases. Primary categories: Citrus · Pine & resin · Alpha: 16–19% Which styles showcase which hops If you're drinking a particular style, these are the hops most likely to be driving it. Cross-reference against what's on the bar to narrow down which variety you're tasting. West Coast IPA: Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo. The C-hops backbone. Hazy / NEIPA: Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, Strata. Tropical and thiol-heavy. English best bitter / pale ale: EKG, Fuggles, Challenger, Bramling Cross. Floral, earthy, restrained. Czech pilsner: Saaz, almost exclusively. Occasional Žatec substitutes. German helles / pils: Hallertauer, Tettnanger, Spalt. Noble and elegant. Cold IPA / West Coast Pilsner: Citra, Mosaic, Strata with noble support. A newer crossbreed style leaning modern hop intensity onto lager crispness. Belgian witbier: Hallertauer, Saaz, sometimes Tettnanger. Restraint over intensity. American pale ale (APA): Cascade at a minimum, usually with Centennial or Amarillo support. The gateway drug. Further reading & source material: Beer Maverick — Hops Database. The canonical brewer's reference. Full alpha / essential oil data, substitution charts, country taxonomy. Beer Analytics — Hop Flavors. Data-driven analysis of hop descriptors as they appear across real-world beer reviews. Jeff Alworth (Beervana) — Describing the flavor of hops. The essay that motivates this piece. Alworth's honest admission that the existing descriptor language has broken down. Yorkshire Craft Beers — Hop Profiles. Retail-adjacent, brewer-angle, 16 varieties in depth. Frequently asked questions Why do different beers taste differently hoppy? Different hop varieties contain different essential oils and acids, and each variety is also used at different points in the brewing process. Hops added early in the boil extract bitterness. Hops added late in the boil or as a dry-hop addition preserve the delicate aromatic oils — which is why a grapefruit-forward IPA smells nothing like a grassy lager even when the same grain bill is used. What's the difference between Cascade and Citra? Cascade is the original American citrus hop — grapefruit and pine, balanced, restrained. It built the West Coast IPA style through the 1990s. Citra (released 2007) is a different animal: much more intensely tropical, with mango, passionfruit and guava character thanks to a higher thiol content. If you're tasting a beer that smells overwhelmingly of tropical fruit juice, you're almost certainly drinking Citra or a variety that behaves like it (Mosaic, Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin). Are English hops different from American hops? Yes, substantially. English varieties like East Kent Goldings, Fuggles and Challenger carry earthy, herbal, floral and spicy character — think hedgerow, orange marmalade, a touch of tobacco. They suit traditional bitter and pale ale. American C-hops (Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Columbus) push harder into grapefruit, pine and resin. Modern American hops (Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe) push further still into tropical fruit territory. The three generations are genuinely different plants; one isn't "better," but a Fuller's London Pride and a Beavertown Gamma Ray are using different tools for different goals. What makes noble hops different? Noble hops — Saaz, Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, Tettnanger, Spalter — are the four traditional continental European varieties used in Czech pilsners, German lagers, Belgian pale ales and witbiers. They're low in alpha acids (so they bitter gently) and high in delicate floral/spicy/herbal oils. A great Czech pilsner or a German helles owes its clean, snappy character to noble hops doing restrained, elegant work rather than the hop-bomb intensity of a West Coast IPA. Why do some new hops taste like coconut or cannabis? Modern hop breeding has pushed into genuinely novel flavour territory. Sabro (released 2018) has a distinct coconut-cream character that seems to surprise first-time drinkers every time. Dank, resinous, "weed-like" notes — especially from Columbus, Simcoe and Chinook — come from cannabinoid-adjacent compounds that hops share with cannabis (they're in the same botanical family). These aren't metaphors brewers reach for; they're literal shared aroma chemistry. Which hop should I try first if I'm new to craft beer? Start with Cascade in a pale ale like Sierra Nevada Pale — it's the foundational American hop, approachable grapefruit-and-pine, moderate intensity. From there, try a Citra-forward NEIPA to taste the modern tropical end of the spectrum. Then pull back to an English pale ale with East Kent Goldings for the herbal/marmalade register. Three beers, three very different hop conversations. No guide can make tasting hops feel automatic. Palates need practice. But the six-category framework at the top of this page will get you from "I don't know what any of this means" to "I think this is a Citra/Mosaic hazy" faster than any other vocabulary we've found. Try it on a pint tonight. The next one will be easier. Use PINtPOINT to find a hop in the wild Home Venues All blog posts How to find beer near you Contact Source projects credited in the "Further reading" section above. Variety names are trademarks of their respective breeding programs and hop merchants. Flavour descriptors are drinker-side summaries, not claims of specific chemical composition. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Blog: The Chelmsford Beer Mile Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/blog/chelmsford-beer-mile-guide.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots Guide5 April 2026 · Chelmsford, Essex The Chelmsford Beer Mile: A Live Guide to Essex's Best Craft-Beer Crawl Chelmsford has quietly become one of the most interesting craft-beer towns in the UK. Eight specialist venues sit within a mile of each other — from a Moulsham Street bottle shop to railway-arch taprooms — and the route between them has been mapped out by the people who actually drink there. This guide is the live companion to that crawl. The grassroots route originates with Chelmsford Beer Mile, a community project by locals who quietly do the unglamorous work of keeping the city's beer scene visible. We're not replacing their site — we're adding the bit they don't cover: what's actually on tap at each stop, right now. Hat tip to the crew behind chelmsfordbeermile.co.uk. The route order below is theirs. Go visit their site, follow #chelmsfordbeermile on Instagram, and — their words — "if we don't get out and support these venues, they won't survive and Chelmsford will be a much duller place to live." The route at a glance Start on Moulsham Street. Walk north, cross the river into the city centre via Duke Street, then finish in the railway arches off Viaduct Road — which dumps you at Chelmsford station for the journey home. Roughly a mile of walking, eight stops, plus one short detour to Voodoo Keller. Moulsham → city centre → the Arches → train home. Stage 1 — Moulsham Street 1The Hop Beer Shop 173 Moulsham St, Chelmsford CM2 0LD Proper specialist bottle shop with a tight draught list. Starts you strong: rotating UK craft kegs alongside an unusually good fridge for drink-in. View live tap list → A recent casualty: Hopsters Beer Store (47a Moulsham St) was the second Moulsham stop on earlier versions of this crawl. It closed in January 2026. The fridge lives on at Hop Beer Shop and at Hopsters' surviving Leigh-on-Sea location — worth the trip if you're making a day of it. 2United Brethren ("The UB") New Writtle St, Chelmsford CM2 0LF Proper local, cask-led, relaxed front room and beer garden out back. Short walk north from The Hop Beer Shop, crossing the road. View live tap list → 3The Orange Tree 6 Lower Anchor St, Chelmsford CM2 0AS Last of the Moulsham-side stops before the walk over the river. CAMRA-favoured cask lineup, quirky room, strong food. View live tap list → Stage 2 — City centre 4Brewhouse & Kitchen — Chelmsford Anne Knight Building, Duke St, Chelmsford CM1 1LW Opened March 2023 in the Grade II listed Anne Knight Building — by far the largest venue on the mile, with in-house brews on tap alongside guest beers, cocktails and food. Good mid-crawl refuel point. View live tap list → ★Voodoo Keller Bar (bonus stop) Basement, 59 New St, Chelmsford CM1 1NE Short detour rather than on the official mile, but worth it: sister venue to Chelmsford Brew Co, so you can drink the local brewery's beer at source. Basement room, darker-vibe drinking den than the bottle-shop stops. View live tap list → Stage 3 — The Arches 5Thirst Drinks Syndicate Viaduct Arches, Chelmsford CM1 1TS First of the four Arches venues — all within sixty seconds of each other. Keg-led and rotating fast. If you're pressed for time, pick one Arch and stay; if you're not, graze. View live tap list → 6The Ale House 24-26 Viaduct Road, Chelmsford CM1 1TS Chelmsford's most recognisable beer-led pub, sharing the Arches strip. Strong cask and keg mix, long-time local favourite. View live tap list → 7Hot Box Live 28-29 Viaduct Road, Chelmsford CM1 1TS Music-venue-meets-bar. The programming skews gig nights so check what's on — if it's a quiet night the tap list does all the work. View live tap list → 8Radio City Social 35-36 Viaduct Road, Chelmsford CM1 1TS Final stop, two-minute walk from the station, late licence Friday/Saturday. Usually 17+ beers on tap, strong independent guest list (recent regulars include Sureshot, Parish, Garage, Mills, Põhjala). The natural finish line. View live tap list → Footnote: Chelmsford Brew Co and a brewing tradition that almost vanished It's easy to think of Chelmsford's craft-beer scene as a 2010s phenomenon, but the city has been brewing in some form for two centuries. The clearest single example is Baddow Brewery Co. Ltd, founded in 1798 on Church Street in Great Baddow by a Mr Crabb and run by the Crabb family through most of the nineteenth century. At its peak Baddow Brewery held 53 tied houses across Essex, shipped ale and porter, and had a bottling store distinctive enough that when it was demolished in 1989 the developers rebuilt it using the original gargoyles. The company was acquired and closed by Seabrooke & Sons in 1927 — and with it, local brewing in Chelmsford went quiet for the better part of a century. The main brewery building still stands on Church Street, now a furniture retailer, with Henry George Crabb's 1868 foundation stone still in place. Chelmsford Brew Co — whose beers you can drink at Voodoo Keller Bar mid-way through the mile — is the most visible modern-era answer to that long quiet. A local brewery, producing locally, with a city-centre drinking venue where the crawl actually runs. Not the same outfit as Baddow Brewery in any legal sense, but the spiritual heir: brewing in Chelmsford again, for Chelmsford drinkers, after a hundred-year gap. The Baddow site itself sits a short drive outside the walking mile (worth a detour for the historically-minded), but Voodoo Keller keeps the thread alive in the city centre. If you want one moment on the crawl that ties the whole thing back to Chelmsford's brewing past, it's a half of the Brew Co house beer in the basement at Voodoo. Practical notes When to go: Saturday afternoon works best — Moulsham peaks early, the Arches peak later. Train home: Radio City is ~3 minutes walk from Chelmsford station. Last fast train to Liverpool Street runs past midnight Fri/Sat. Half-pints are your friend. Eight stops is still a lot of pints. Most venues will happily pour halves or thirds. Food stops: Brewhouse & Kitchen (full menu) and United Brethren (garden pub food) are the best sit-down options. Most other stops focus on the beer. Live tap data: Every stop above deep-links to its live tap list on PINtPOINT — open the app and every one of these venues appears on the radar. Why we wrote this PINtPOINT's whole job is helping people decide where to drink next. A grassroots crawl like the Chelmsford Beer Mile is the perfect use case: eight venues, each unique, all well-run, and a route curated by people who know the city. The only thing missing was live information about which pints are actually on tonight — and that's the gap this page fills. We'd rather link to and complement chelmsfordbeermile.co.uk than compete with it. The best thing we can do for Chelmsford's beer scene is drive more drinkers toward those venues, and the app's radar view does that directly. Frequently asked questions What is the Chelmsford Beer Mile? A community-curated walking route linking the city's best craft-beer, cask-ale and specialist bottle-shop venues. Starts on Moulsham Street, crosses into the city centre, and finishes in the railway arches on Viaduct Road. Eight stops, roughly a mile end to end (plus Voodoo Keller as an optional ninth). How long does the Chelmsford Beer Mile take? Walking-only, about 25 minutes. With a half-pint at each of the eight stops, allow 4 hours. Which direction should I walk the Chelmsford Beer Mile? Start south on Moulsham Street (Hop Beer Shop → The UB → The Orange Tree), cross into the city centre at Brewhouse & Kitchen, and finish in the Arches (Thirst Drinks Syndicate → The Ale House → Hot Box → Radio City Social). You end up a 3-minute walk from Chelmsford station. Are these all cask real ale pubs? No — the mile is deliberately mixed. Bottle shops with taprooms, traditional cask pubs, a brewpub, and craft-keg-led Arches venues. One mile, every format. How do I find out what's on tap at each venue before I go? Every stop on this page deep-links to its PINtPOINT venue page with the live tap list. In the app, open the radar view and every mile venue appears ranked by freshness. Where does Chelmsford Brew Co fit in? Chelmsford Brew Co's production brewery is slightly outside the mile itself, but its sister city-centre venue Voodoo Keller Bar (59 New Street) sits between Brewhouse & Kitchen and the Arches — an easy detour if you want to drink their beers at source. Chelmsford punches well above its size for beer. The mile is proof — eight specialist venues within a short walk is a London-grade craft-beer density, delivered in a city most people drive past on the way to somewhere else. Worth a Saturday. Get PINtPOINT — track the mile live Home Features How to find beer near you vs Untappd vs Real Ale Finder Privacy Policy Contact Chelmsford Beer Mile route and branding © the original site authors at chelmsfordbeermile.co.uk. This page is an independent companion guide with their tip-of-the-hat in mind. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Blog: A Love Letter to San Diego Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/blog/san-diego-ipa-capital-love-letter.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots Love letter9 April 2026 · San Diego, California A Love Letter to San Diego: How a Navy Town Became the IPA Capital of the World San Diego is, quietly, the most important craft-beer city in the world. Not the biggest — Portland, Denver, London and Copenhagen can all claim more breweries per square mile. But ask any serious beer drinker where the modern IPA lives, and the answer lands in the same place. The West Coast IPA was not invented in San Diego. It was perfected there. Companion piece: this essay has a twin on the opposite side of the world — a love letter to Melbourne, the city that built its craft-beer capital bar-first rather than brewery-first. Two routes, same destination. This is a love letter from a long way away — written from the UK, where we drink Southern Californian hop character reinterpreted by local breweries every week, and where the words "West Coast IPA" on a tap badge still carry weight. San Diego earned that weight. Here is how. "The modern IPA didn't start in San Diego. It grew up there." The conditions In 1989 California changed its brewpub law, and in the same year Karl Strauss Brewing opened downtown. The timing matters: San Diego, before this, was not a beer town. It was a US Navy city with decent weather, Mexican food, and a fairly staid drinking scene dominated by macro lager and sun-addled tourism. What it also had — less visibly — was: A strong homebrew community that had been meeting at places like QUAFF (Quality Ale and Fermentation Fraternity) through the 1980s, quietly sharpening palates and brewing skill before the commercial scene existed. Abundant year-round sun — which, in a city of beer gardens and taproom patios, turns the bar into a social default rather than a winter retreat. Cheap industrial real estate in neighbourhoods like Miramar, Kearny Mesa and North Park that could absorb large brewing operations without Bay Area rents. Californian water chemistry that's mineral-soft enough to carry the bright, bitter hop bills West Coast IPA demands. Every craft-beer city has two or three of those. San Diego had all four. The founding wave 1989 Karl Strauss Brewing Company opens downtown The godfather. Launched as a brewpub in Columbia Street the same year California legalised the format. For nearly a decade Karl Strauss was essentially the San Diego craft scene on its own, shipping pale ales and amber ales that educated a city of lager drinkers on what beer could taste like. Everyone who came later had at some point stood at a Karl Strauss bar. 1996 Stone Brewing & Ballast Point, same year Both founded within months of each other, both destined to become global brands. Stone shipped Arrogant Bastard (1997) and the namesake Stone IPA (1997), leaned hard into confrontational branding, and defined "big hops, bigger attitude" as a San Diego posture. Ballast Point opened out of a home-brew shop on Linda Vista Road and built quietly for ten years before Sculpin IPA (released 2005) turned them into a household craft name and, eventually, a $1 billion acquisition. Pizza Port (brewpub on Solana Beach) also opened around this period and incubated an outsize number of the brewers who later founded their own breweries — the San Diego equivalent of a beer-world finishing school. Late 1990s — Mid 2000s The hop arms race The second wave — AleSmith, Green Flash, Mike Hess, Lost Abbey/Port Brewing — pushed the hop character harder and drier. Beers like Green Flash West Coast IPA (2008) and AleSmith IPA weren't just flavourful — they were exemplars, the ones other brewers worldwide tasted and cribbed from. San Diego's calling card became what brewers called "IBU stacking": bittering charge, flavour charge, and massive late-kettle and dry-hop additions piled together for a beer that was simultaneously aggressive and clean. By the middle of the 2000s San Diego breweries were hauling medals out of the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup with enough regularity that IPA Capital of the World stopped being marketing and started being description. 2010s Neighbourhood breweries and the North Park scene What changed in the 2010s wasn't the style — it was the geography. Societe Brewing (2012), North Park Beer Co (2016), Modern Times, Pure Project (originally Carlsbad, North Park taproom 2018) — a generation of neighbourhood-scale breweries opened in walkable districts rather than industrial parks, turning places like North Park into beer destinations in their own right. A visitor can now land in San Diego, take a rideshare to University Avenue, and drink the entire arc of West Coast IPA evolution within two square miles. What the West Coast IPA actually is The style is defined more by restraint than excess — which feels counter-intuitive for a beer known for throwing hops at the problem. A well-made West Coast IPA has: Bright clarity. Not hazy. If your pint is cloudy, you're drinking a New England IPA, which is a different style entirely. A dry finish. The malt bill is lean on purpose. A sweet West Coast IPA is a broken West Coast IPA. Resinous, piney, grapefruit-pith hop character. Classic hops: Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Chinook, Columbus. Newer hops (Citra, Mosaic) push into tropical territory but still in a dry frame. Firm bitterness. IBUs that would feel aggressive in other styles — 55 to 80 is typical — are right at home here. 6.5–7.5% ABV. Above that you're in DIPA/imperial territory; below is pale ale. The San Diego interpretation of all five of those is the reference version. Every "West Coast IPA" tap badge you see in a UK pub, a Melbourne bar, or a Tokyo bottle shop is, whether the brewer realises it or not, a letter home to Mission Boulevard. Where to drink the legacy today PINtPOINT currently tracks 30+ San Diego venues with live tap lists. A starter selection, roughly by neighbourhood: AleSmith Brewing Miramar · flagship taproom Societe Brewing Clairemont Mesa · hop reference North Park Beer Co. University Ave · neighbourhood anchor Mike Hess Brewing North Park · Grim Ave taproom Pure Project North Park El Cajon Blvd · wild + hoppy Modern Times Flavordome Mission Valley · alt-craft Kilowatt Brewing Clairemont Mesa · small-batch True North Tavern North Park · craft bar West Coast Tavern University Ave · all-rounder Public House La Jolla La Jolla · coast-facing The full roster with live tap data sits on the Venues page and in the app's radar view. The only honest critique San Diego's long dominance came with a cost. The city's hop-forward, bitter, dry aesthetic was so overwhelming through the 2000s that a lot of American drinkers — especially a generation of newer craft drinkers — associated "IPA" exclusively with aggressive bitterness. When the New England / Hazy IPA style exploded out of Vermont in the mid-2010s, its softness and tropical juice character felt, to some, like permission to enjoy hoppy beer without the palate bruise. The corrective was healthy. Great breweries in San Diego now make both — Societe's hazy lineup is excellent alongside their West Coast back catalogue — and the two styles coexist rather than compete. But the love letter is still to the West Coast IPA, and San Diego is where it lives. Pine resin, grapefruit pith, sea air. San Diego built that. A short itinerary for a visitor If you have one evening in San Diego and want to experience the scene rather than chase specific breweries, here's the fastest route: Start in North Park. Walk University Avenue between about 28th and 32nd streets. You'll pass four or five beer-forward venues within ten minutes. Middle stop: Societe or AleSmith. Both are short rideshares from downtown. Societe for the neighbourhood-brewery feel; AleSmith for the pilgrimage to a West Coast IPA flagship. End coast-facing. Public House La Jolla, or anywhere in Ocean Beach. The final pint in view of the Pacific is the ritual the city has built around itself. Frequently asked questions Why is San Diego called the IPA Capital of the World? A wave of breweries founded in the 1990s — Karl Strauss (1989), Stone (1996), Ballast Point (1996), AleSmith, Pizza Port, Green Flash — codified a specific hop-forward, dry, bitter IPA style and won national and international competition medals consistently through the 2000s. The style they built, West Coast IPA, was copied worldwide, but San Diego is where it was defined. What is a West Coast IPA? A dry, bitter, aromatic IPA built on resinous, citrusy American hops (Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Chinook, Columbus) with a lean malt bill that lets the hops dominate. Typical ABV 6.5–7.5%. Clarity: bright, not hazy. Flavour: grapefruit pith, pine resin, sea air. Which San Diego brewery started it all? Karl Strauss (1989) is the oldest modern-era San Diego craft brewery. But the style's defining punch arrived a few years later: Stone Brewing and Ballast Point both launched in 1996, and within a decade their approach had become the city's signature. Where should I drink craft beer when visiting San Diego today? Start in North Park — the highest concentration of independent breweries and beer-led bars in the city. AleSmith in Miramar for a flagship visit. La Jolla or Ocean Beach for coast-facing taprooms. PINtPOINT tracks 30+ venues live with tap-list filtering. Is San Diego still the IPA Capital, or has Vermont taken over? Different styles. Vermont is the reference for New England / Hazy IPA. San Diego remains the reference for West Coast IPA. The two coexist; most serious craft drinkers value both. San Diego's claim is style-specific, not genre-wide. How many craft breweries are there in San Diego? Over 150 active craft breweries sit within San Diego County, making it one of the most densely-brewed metro areas in the US. PINtPOINT currently tracks around 30 of the key city-of-San-Diego venues with live tap lists. San Diego didn't set out to be a beer capital. It ended up as one because a handful of people in the late 1980s and 1990s decided to brew the hoppiest, cleanest, brightest beer they could — and because a lot of very good drinkers showed up to support them. The rest of us got West Coast IPA as a gift. Headed there? The full tap list is a tap away. Explore San Diego in PINtPOINT Home Features Venues How to find beer near you vs Untappd All blog posts Contact Karl Strauss, Stone, Ballast Point, AleSmith, Societe, North Park Beer Co, Mike Hess, Pure Project, Modern Times, and the other breweries named here are trademarks of their respective owners. This article is independent editorial, not affiliated with any brewery. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Blog: A Love Letter to Melbourne Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/blog/melbourne-bar-culture-love-letter.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots Love letter16 April 2026 · Melbourne, Victoria A Love Letter to Melbourne: The City That Built a Craft-Beer Scene on Bars, Not Breweries There are two routes to a craft-beer capital. San Diego took one. Melbourne took the other. San Diego, as we wrote earlier this week, built its reputation on breweries. Karl Strauss, Stone, Ballast Point, AleSmith — the names that define West Coast IPA are brewing companies whose taprooms became pilgrimage sites. The bar, in that model, is downstream: a place that pours what the breweries make. Melbourne's scene is structured the other way round. The bar is the hero. Breweries exist — Mountain Goat since 1997, Moon Dog since 2010, Stomping Ground, Bodriggy, CBCo, Molly Rose, Venom — but what gives Melbourne its distinctive craft-beer identity isn't any of those names. It's Catfish, The Local Taphouse, Hippo Bottle & Bar, Cookie, Forester's Hall, Boilermaker House and a couple of dozen more. Bars whose entire identity is the curation, not the brewing. Punch Drink's guide to Melbourne's craft-beer bars opens with the line that does all the work: "Melbourne is now home to more craft breweries than tram stops, and a crop of excellent bars have grown up to support the ever-growing scene." That's not a throwaway. That sentence describes a scene that genuinely inverts the American model. San Diego built its craft capital brewery-first. Melbourne built its bar-first. Companion piece: this essay is the twin of our love letter to San Diego. If you read one, read the other — they tell the same story about two cities that solved the same problem from opposite ends. Why it came out this way Three conditions shaped Melbourne's bar-first path. None of them were inevitable; all of them matter. Trams. Melbourne is one of the few major cities in the world where moving between neighbourhoods is frictionless on public transport. When every tram stop is a potential bar, the bar becomes the atomic unit of drinking culture, not the destination brewery. Laneway culture. The CBD's small-bar licensing revolution in the 2000s created hundreds of tiny, curated drinking rooms tucked into alleys off the main streets. The form factor — small room, shortish list, strong personality — is perfect for rotating-tap craft-beer bars specifically. Fitzroy, Collingwood, Abbotsford, Brunswick. A string of inner northern suburbs with cheap warehouse space (by CBD standards), high foot traffic, and demographics weighted toward the kind of people who care whether the keg they're drinking was tapped this week. Bars clustered here organically, and the network effects compounded. San Diego had industrial parks and year-round sun. Melbourne had trams and laneways. The weather and real estate shaped the scene as much as anyone's stated intentions did. The founding wave 1997 Mountain Goat Brewing, Richmond Australia's earliest independent craft-beer pioneer to survive into the modern era. Two mates brewing in a Richmond warehouse, hand-bottling, distributing locally. By the time they were acquired by Asahi in 2015 they'd educated a generation of Melbourne drinkers on what an independent Australian beer could be. Mountain Goat's taproom in Richmond remains open and continues to feel like where this story starts. 2007 The Local Taphouse opens in St Kilda The single most important Melbourne bar opening in the craft-beer chronology. The Local Taphouse was one of the first venues in Australia to build a bar entirely around craft beer — a rotating 20-tap line, 100+ bottles in the fridge, a rooftop garden with a fireplace for Melbourne winters. It wasn't a pub with craft beer in it. It was a craft-beer room with a pub wrapped around it. Every Fitzroy and Collingwood bar that came after is a reply to Local Taphouse's original question: what if the bar was the whole point? 2010 Moon Dog, Abbotsford Three friends in a warehouse in Abbotsford making beers that nobody else was making — a 40% ABV beer aged on caramelised figs and Madeira, a weisse with jelly snakes, eventually an imperial stout matured on vintage port barrels for 18 months. Moon Dog became the brewery that taught Melbourne to expect weirdness from its craft breweries, not just technical competence. The Abbotsford home-base also pulled tourism into a suburb that previously had none. 2016 Stomping Ground, Collingwood A purpose-built brewery-plus-beer-hall in a converted industrial building on Gipps Street. Stomping Ground is what happens when you combine brewery and bar in one building but keep the bar's soul — a 30+ tap wall, their own production visible through glass, and a food menu that treats beer pairing seriously. Their city-centre Beer Hall (Sydney-centric readers, imagine a BrewDog taproom scaled up by 3x and given actual taste) extended the model into the CBD. The geography Four clusters make up Melbourne's craft-beer map. Any of them is a legitimate afternoon. All four together is roughly a weekend. Trams connect everything. Cluster 1 — Fitzroy & Collingwood The beating heart of the scene Dense, walkable, with bars and taprooms within a kilometre of each other. This is where the "Melbourne beer night" genre was invented. Brunswick Street for the vinyl-bar/Catfish end, Smith Street for the bottle-shop-bar/Hippo end, Gipps Street for the Stomping Ground-scale brewery-bar. Go: The Catfish, Hippo Bottle & Bar, Stomping Ground, Molly Rose Brewery, Redwood Tasting Room. Cluster 2 — Abbotsford & Richmond Where the breweries live Slightly further east, the production-brewery cluster. Moon Dog's home base in Abbotsford, Mountain Goat's originating taproom in Richmond, Bodriggy and CBCo not far away. If you want to drink at breweries rather than in bars, you come here. Go: Moon Dog World (Abbotsford), Mountain Goat (Richmond), CBCo Brewing (further south at Port Melbourne), Pirate Life South Melbourne. Cluster 3 — The CBD & its laneways Curation as a core competency The laneway bars do a very specific thing extremely well — small rooms, ruthlessly curated tap lists, strong food. Cookie is the classic first stop for a CBD beer evening. Boilermaker House does whisky-and-beer about as elegantly as anywhere in the world. Arbory Afloat turns into a floating bar on the Yarra in summer, which is a deeply Melbourne thing to do with a beer list. Go: Boilermaker House, Garden State Hotel, Captain Melville, Arbory Bar & Eatery / Arbory Afloat (summer), Imperial Hotel, The Mitre Tavern. Cluster 4 — St Kilda & the south Where the story starts Less dense but containing The Local Taphouse, which is effectively the foundation stone of the whole movement. Worth the tram ride south for that one venue alone; layer in the beach-side atmosphere and it becomes a legitimate afternoon. Go: The Local Taphouse, The Drunken Poet (West Melbourne, technically a different direction — but worth pairing on a CBD night). What makes a Melbourne bar a Melbourne bar Strip away the marketing and the good Melbourne craft-beer bars do the same four things: High rotation. Tap lists turn over weekly, sometimes daily. A bar that keeps the same 20 beers on all year has failed the test. The promise is that if you come back next Saturday, something on the wall will be new. Curation with a point of view. The selection isn't random. Catfish's vinyl-only music pairs with a very specific kind of tap list. Hippo's bottle-shop angle means the draft selection complements the fridge. Boilermaker's whisky programme dictates that the beer list leans toward things that can hold their own next to a spirit. Beer-led food. Not afterthought food. Catfish has a Philly cheesesteak counter; Cookie has a proper Thai menu; Garden State Hotel is effectively a restaurant-plus-beer-hall. Food isn't beer's supporting cast — it's the other half of the evening. Room personality. No Melbourne bar looks like another Melbourne bar. Catfish is 1890s boarding-house with tube TVs and vinyl. Boilermaker is wood-panelled whisky-library. Cookie is a first-floor converted Curtain House. Forester's Hall is an actual dance hall. The room matters — the beer is the reason, but the room is the memory. No one bar does all four perfectly, but every great Melbourne bar does at least three. The honest critique Melbourne's bar-first model has a shadow side worth naming. Because the bars set the pace, individual breweries have less of a single-producer cultural footprint than in San Diego or Portland — the national-brand craft breweries that come out of Melbourne (Stomping Ground, Moon Dog, Mountain Goat, Bodriggy) are excellent but none has quite the genre-defining status that, say, Stone IPA or AleSmith Speedway Stout hold in the US. The bars compensate for this gap — and arguably are the thing that makes Melbourne's scene Melbourne's rather than a regional-scale imitation of something American. But if your love of craft beer is organised around pilgrimage to specific producers, Melbourne can feel slightly diffuse. You're drinking in Melbourne, not at Moon Dog. The fix is to embrace that. The pilgrimage in Melbourne is the bar crawl, not the brewery tour. Melbourne isn't a collection of breweries. It's a collection of rooms. A one-day visitor itinerary If you have a single Saturday and want to taste what the city does best, this is the route most Melbourne craft-beer drinkers would roughly endorse: Afternoon in Fitzroy/Collingwood. Start at Catfish on Brunswick Street, walk east to Smith Street for Hippo Bottle & Bar, finish at Stomping Ground on Gipps Street for the big-room feel before dinner. Dinner in the CBD laneways. Cookie (if you can get in) or Garden State Hotel. Craft-beer-aware food that doesn't treat the beer list as an afterthought. Late evening at Boilermaker House or back to a neighbourhood bar. If it's Fri/Sat and you want late, Forester's Hall in Collingwood keeps the craft tap list running past when almost every other venue has closed its kitchen. If you have Sunday spare, get to St Kilda. The Local Taphouse. The scene started here; close the loop by drinking where it began. Where to start on PINtPOINT We currently track 37 Melbourne-area venues with live tap lists. A curated entry point: The Local Taphouse St Kilda · the founding venue The Catfish Fitzroy · vinyl-only, weekly rotation Hippo Bottle & Bar Collingwood · bottle shop + drinking room Stomping Ground Collingwood · brewery & beer hall Molly Rose Brewery Collingwood · hip neighbourhood brewery Boilermaker House CBD · whisky-and-beer Garden State Hotel CBD · restaurant + beer hall Captain Melville CBD · craft-forward inner-city Arbory Afloat Yarra River · summer-only floating bar Redwood Tasting Room Fitzroy North · small-batch tasting The full roster with live tap data is on the Venues page and the app's radar view. A final word, if you're visiting The one mistake most visitors make in Melbourne is treating the bar scene as if it were Portland's or San Diego's — expecting brewery names to be the organising principle. They're not. Walk into a great Melbourne bar, don't look at the beer list first, look at the room. Then look at what's on the wall. Then order a half of something that's been on for less than a week. That's the algorithm. It runs the same everywhere in the city. In San Diego, you remember the breweries. In Melbourne, you remember the bars. Frequently asked questions Why is Melbourne known for craft beer? Melbourne's reputation is bar-driven rather than brewery-driven. The Local Taphouse (2007), Catfish, Cookie, Hippo Bottle & Bar, Boilermaker House and Forester's Hall run rotating, curated tap lists that function as daily-refreshed menus rather than brewery showcases. Punch Drink summarises it: "Melbourne is now home to more craft breweries than tram stops, and a crop of excellent bars have grown up to support the ever-growing scene." What's the difference between Melbourne and San Diego craft beer scenes? Structural. San Diego is brewery-first — Karl Strauss, Stone, Ballast Point defined the West Coast IPA style through their own brewing, and bars followed. Melbourne is bar-first — independent, curation-driven venues rotate beers from across Victoria, Australia and the world. A great San Diego beer afternoon is a brewery tour; a great Melbourne one is a bar crawl. Which neighbourhoods should I visit for craft beer in Melbourne? Four clusters. Fitzroy/Collingwood is the dense walkable heart. Abbotsford/Richmond holds the production-brewery footprint. The CBD laneways do the curation-first small-bar thing. St Kilda has The Local Taphouse — the scene's founding venue. What's the best craft beer bar in Melbourne? Subjective, but consensus picks are The Local Taphouse (St Kilda — the original), Catfish (Fitzroy — vinyl-only, weekly-rotating), Hippo Bottle & Bar (Collingwood — bottle-shop drinking room), Boilermaker House (CBD — whisky-and-beer), and Forester's Hall (Collingwood — largest craft tap count in Australia). All do curated rotating tap lists in very different atmospheres. Is Melbourne the craft-beer capital of Australia? By most measures, yes. Brisbane has more breweries per capita and Sydney has inner-suburb density, but Melbourne has both breadth (breweries across Abbotsford, Collingwood, Port Melbourne, Brunswick, Richmond) and the specialist bar depth (60+ craft-focused venues in the metro area). When did Melbourne's craft-beer scene take off? Mountain Goat (Richmond, 1997) is the country's earliest major independent craft microbrewery. Bar culture followed roughly a decade later: The Local Taphouse opened in St Kilda in 2007 and treated craft beer as the whole reason for existing. Moon Dog (2010) and Stomping Ground (2016) extended the scene into modern form. Source material: Punch Drink — The Best Craft Beer Bars in Melbourne. Source of the guiding thesis line. City Unscripted — Best places to drink craft beer in Melbourne. Local-insider guide by Chris Wyness. Beer Crawl Australia — Melbourne brewery map. Geographic reference for the brewery clusters. Wanderlog — Best Melbourne breweries and craft beer. Visitor-oriented roundup. Urban Adventures — Craft beer lovers' guide to Melbourne. Walking-tour-adjacent framing. TripAdvisor — Melbourne craft beer activities. Tourist-consensus ranking. Melbourne's gift to craft beer is the idea that the bar is a product. Not the room that sells the product — the actual product. When that idea is taken seriously, you end up with a scene that can't be copied by just cloning the same breweries somewhere else. The magic is in how the pints are put together, not in the names on the taps. Worth at least one weekend. Explore Melbourne on PINtPOINT Home Venues All blog posts Companion: San Diego Contact The Local Taphouse, Catfish, Hippo, Cookie, Boilermaker House, Forester's Hall, Stomping Ground, Moon Dog, Mountain Goat, Garden State Hotel and every other venue named here are trademarks of their respective owners. This article is independent editorial, not affiliated with any bar or brewery. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Blog: What's Wrong With Beer Recommendation Systems Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/blog/beer-recommendation-systems-what-most-get-wrong.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Blog Screenshots Essay29 March 2026 · Product What's Wrong With Beer Recommendation Systems (And What PINtPOINT Does Differently) Every couple of years, a smart data-science student builds a beer recommender on top of Untappd or RateBeer data, posts the write-up, and it makes the rounds. The models are usually solid. The underlying question is the one they don't quite get to: is this actually useful to someone standing at a bar tonight? The best beer recommendation system is useless if it ignores what's actually pouring tonight. Two pieces are worth reading as a starting point: Ethan Haley — Untappd as a recommender (RPubs, 2021) NYC Data Science — NINKASI: Beer Recommender System (2020) Haley's piece treats Untappd's rating data as fuel for a collaborative-filtering recommender. Ninkasi scrapes RateBeer, runs SVD++ and Restricted Boltzmann Machines, and wraps the output in a Flask app. Both are careful, honest work — the kind you wish more consumer-app companies did publicly. They also both bump into the same three walls, and those walls are what PINtPOINT was designed around rather than over. Wall 1: The cold-start problem Collaborative filtering needs history. SVD++ needs dozens of ratings per user before predictions stabilise. RBMs are even hungrier. What does a rating-based recommender serve to a brand-new user with zero check-ins? In practice: popular beers. Pliny the Elder for anyone with "IPA" in their signature. Guinness for anyone who once rated a stout. That's not a recommendation — it's a bestseller list. PINtPOINT uses a structured preference-elicitation step instead: a feature called Sip-or-Skip. Ten quick card-swipes — "would you order this? yes/no" — produces a usable style profile in under a minute. It's the same principle Tinder uses for matchmaking: forced binary choices beat free-form ratings for fast signal. Asking "rate this beer 1-5" is a harder cognitive task than "would you order this now?" — and it produces noisier data. Wall 2: Popularity bias Any model trained on open rating data learns what's popular long before it learns what's personal. RateBeer and Untappd both have a heavy head: the top 1% of beers collect 50%+ of ratings. A recommender trained on that data is, mathematically, a popularity predictor wearing a collaborative-filtering costume. This shows up in practice as a kind of ceiling. Haley's model and Ninkasi can both predict ratings well — but "predict rating" and "predict the pint you'll actually enjoy ordering next" are different tasks. The former is solved. The latter, less so. PINtPOINT's approach is to use pair-choice rounds (Head-to-Head) where both options are plausible for the user — forcing the model to learn genuine preference gradients, not just which beer is on the hype cycle this month. Wall 3: Geography-blindness The biggest practical problem with nearly every public beer recommender is that it doesn't know, and doesn't try to know, what you can actually order right now. Ninkasi's output is: "you'll probably like Westmalle Tripel." Great. The bar in front of you is a 30-pub craft garden in Shoreditch. Which of those 30 taps is actually the Westmalle-flavoured experience? The model can't say, because it only knows beers, not venues. PINtPOINT scores your style profile against the live tap lists at pubs near you. The recommendation engine runs on what's pouring, not a global beer catalogue: You walk into range of a venue tracked by PINtPOINT The app pulls its current tap list (cask + keg, freshness-indicated) Your PINtDEXTER profile scores each line The top match gets flagged with a taste-match percentage The unit of recommendation is a pint that exists, on a bar you can reach, tonight — not an abstract beer name you'll screenshot and forget. What a good beer recommender is actually solving for Haley and Ninkasi are both solving "predict this user's rating of beer X." That's a well-defined ML task. It trains, it evaluates, it publishes nicely. The consumer-facing question is different: "Of the pints I can order right now, which should I pick?" That's a smaller problem — and a more tractable one. You don't need to predict every beer in the world. You need to rank the 8-20 beers on the bar in front of the user, with enough preference signal to be confidently better than "just pick the IPA". Once the problem is scoped that way, cold start, popularity bias, and geography-blindness all shrink. How PINtDEXTER layers the signals The engine inside PINtPOINT is called PINtDEXTER. It combines: Sip-or-Skip — fast binary card swipes across beer styles, for the cold-start minute Head-to-Head — paired-choice rounds that sharpen a profile the user has already seeded Preferred-styles layer — an interpretable derivation across 13 style categories (IPA, lager, stout, sour, cask, cider, pale, wheat, porter, saison, imperial, session, other) TUNeDEXTER manual sliders — user-exposed knobs that override the inferred profile if you disagree Venue-aware ranking — scoring applied against the live tap list at pubs near you It's deliberately not a black-box neural net. The layered structure is there so the user can see why the app recommended what it did, and correct it if they want. What we're not claiming PINtDEXTER isn't a breakthrough in recommender research. It's not going to out-predict SVD++ on a RateBeer leaderboard. Those models and the people who build them are doing harder work than what's in a consumer app. What we think it is is a better answer to the practical question a drinker is actually asking: what should I get? Framed as a venue-bound, tonight-shaped problem, the recommender gets to use much smaller, cleaner inputs and deliver a sharper output. Where the public recommender projects are still valuable Honest respect to both linked pieces. A few things they get exactly right: Ratings data does have real structure. Style co-occurrences and per-user bias are picked up cleanly by matrix-factorisation approaches like SVD++. RateBeer and Untappd are generous corpora by industry standards — the beer world is unusually open about its ratings. Transparent methodology + working Flask/R web apps + public notebooks is a great cultural norm. The models linked above could be dropped into a real product with modest effort. If you're interested in the ML side of beer recommendation specifically, both links in the intro are worth reading end-to-end. If you're interested in what to drink tonight, PINtPOINT will answer that question faster. Most beer recommenders predict ratings. PINtPOINT picks pints. Frequently asked questions Why is the cold start problem so hard for beer recommenders? Collaborative-filtering models like SVD++ or RBMs need dozens of ratings per user before predictions stabilise. A brand-new user gets "popular beers" as a fallback, which isn't personalisation — it's a leaderboard. PINtPOINT solves this with Sip-or-Skip: ~10 binary card swipes yield a usable style profile on first use. What's wrong with using Untappd ratings as the main input to a recommender? Untappd ratings are a biased sample — heavy-hitting releases collect disproportionate ratings, so a model trained on them learns popularity more than preference. Recommenders built on purpose-collected pair-choice signals, rather than free-form reviews, produce sharper personalisation. How does PINtPOINT's PINtDEXTER recommender work? Three layers: (1) Sip-or-Skip + Head-to-Head pair rounds build a style profile from binary choices; (2) that profile derives 13 style-category sliders the user can fine-tune directly; (3) the live tap lists at nearby venues are scored against the profile, so recommendations are always tied to beer actually in front of you. Why do most beer recommenders ignore location? Because the training data doesn't include it, or the system is built as a catalogue recommender (what beers exist) rather than an availability recommender (what's pouring near you tonight). A recommendation for a beer you'll never order isn't really a recommendation. Is a good beer recommender even possible given how noisy ratings are? It depends what you're predicting. Predicting star ratings from other star ratings hits a noise floor fast. Predicting "of the 4 pints on the bar in front of you, which one will you enjoy most" is a narrower, more tractable problem. How is this different from Next Glass, BeerMenus, or Untappd's own recommendations? Next Glass (acquired by Untappd) and similar rating-driven systems optimise for catalogue-style historical preference. PINtPOINT optimises for the real-time decision at a specific venue. The two are complementary — Untappd is the diary, PINtPOINT is the decision engine. Source material referenced: Ethan Haley — "Untappd as a recommender" (RPubs) NINKASI: Beer Recommender System (NYC Data Science blog) Ninkasi Beer recommender app (Internet Archive) If you're a data scientist, go read the linked work — it's good. If you're a beer drinker, try PINtPOINT and let PINtDEXTER pick your next pint based on the tap list in front of you, not a global leaderboard. Download PINtPOINT Home Features Screenshots How to find beer near you vs Untappd vs Real Ale Finder Privacy Policy Contact Untappd, RateBeer, Next Glass, BeerMenus are trademarks of their respective owners. Links to third-party research are included for reference and critique, not endorsement. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Blog: Walking the Ted Lasso Pub Trail in Richmond — From Crown & Anchor to Richmond Hill Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/blog/richmond-ted-lasso-pub-trail.html PINtPOINT Guide · 19 April 2026 · Richmond-upon-Thames · Pub crawl Where was Ted Lasso filmed? The Crown & Anchor pub exterior is The Prince's Head at 28 The Green, Richmond TW9 1LX. Ted's flat doorway is 11½ Paved Court, the cobbled alley directly off Richmond Green. The Roy & Keeley first-date scene is at Richmond Riverside in front of the Old Town Hall. Rebecca's house is 1 Pembroke Villas. Most other filming took place within a square mile of Richmond Green. Ted Lasso Season 4 premieres on Apple TV on Wednesday 5 August 2026. The four-stop walking trail STOP 01 — The Prince's Head, 28 The Green, Richmond TW9 1LX. Crown & Anchor exterior. Built around 1705, Fuller's pub, red phone boxes outside. The bench just outside the door is where Ted and Beard share a beer after Michelle leaves in S1E5; the fountain across the road is where Cam Cole busks in S1E2. Walk a few steps round to Paved Court, the cobbled alley off The Green — fairy lights overhead, independent shops on both sides. 11½ Paved Court is the doorway to Ted's flat. STOP 02 — The Cricketers, 24 The Green, Richmond TW9 1LX. Forty seconds' walk along the same edge of the green. Greene King–tied, but a good one — proper pub atmosphere on a busy Richmond afternoon, looking out across the cricket ground. STOP 03 — The White Cross, Riverside TW9 1TH. Down to the Thames. Young's pub on the riverside path, famous for flooding at high tide. The towpath running past the pub doubles as Dr Sharon's bike-ride route in S2E8. 200 yards south at Richmond Riverside (the broad paved area in front of the Old Town Hall) is where Roy and Keeley's first date was filmed in S1E8. STOP 04 — The Roebuck, 130 Richmond Hill TW10 6RN. Walk up Richmond Hill. Richmond's oldest pub (1717), at the top, with the cross-the-road terrace facing the protected Thames bend that Ted Lasso uses as a reflection-shot every time the writers want their American to have a quiet moment about home. Fan extras: filming locations within the same square mile Rebecca's House — 1 Pembroke Villas (the corner house, marked "Pembroke House"). Exterior in every shot of Rebecca's home. Nate's Parents' House — roughly 15 Portland Terrace. The row backs onto The Green. Old Town Hall, Whittaker Avenue — post-gala scene in S1E4 where Ted and Rebecca step out and decide against the bike taxi. The stairway down to the river is the same one the photographer climbs in S1E8. Richmond Theatre — Little Green TW9 1QJ. Stands in for the gala venue's exterior in S1E4. Danieli on The Green — chocolate and gelato shop where The Green meets Brewers Lane. Ted and Beard pass it in the Bird-by-Bird walking scene (S1E2). Gents of Richmond — Golden Court past The Prince's Head. The barber's where Jamie gets cornered for an autograph in S1E10. 4 and 1 Old Palace Terrace — two of the front doors Roy, Keeley and Phoebe knock on during the dentist hunt in S2E4. Old Palace Lane car park (Thames end) — the Pavlov / classical-conditioning chat between Jamie and Keeley in S1E6. Church Court / Church Walk — off George Street. The "Love, Actually" Christmas-card sequence walk-away. Bonus across the river: Church Street, Twickenham is where the S2E3 scene with Rebecca, Nora, Roy and Phoebe is filmed. Wider Richmond beer scene Tap Tavern — Princes St, TW9 1ED. 20 rotating keg/cask lines; Kernel, Siren, Verdant, Cloudwater, Buxton in regular rotation. The proper craft destination in Richmond. Richmond Vault Beer Cellar — 5 Hill St, TW9 1SX. Basement Georgian space, 100+ craft bottles. Brewstation Tap Room — Petersham Rd, TW10 6UW. Askrigg (Yorkshire) brewery taproom, opened June 2024. The Mitre — 20 St Mary's Grove, TW9 1UY. 14 handpumps, Cask Marque accredited. The Botanist on the Green — 3-5 Kew Green, TW9 3AA. Own micro-brewery on-site. The Old Ship — 3 King St, TW9 1ND. Young's house, 1735. Tap on the Line — Kew Gardens Station, TW9 3PZ. Station-platform pub, 6 cask + 5 craft. Practical notes Start at Richmond station — District line + South Western Railway, two minutes from Richmond Green. The trail is roughly 1.5 miles end-to-end, three to four hours if you stop at every pub, longer if you take the Kew detour. This is a Guide — long-form editorial. Ted Lasso Season 4 premieres on Apple TV on Wednesday 5 August 2026. © 2026 PINtPOINT --- # Privacy Policy Source: https://pintpoint.co.uk/privacy-policy.html PINtPOINT About Features Venues Screenshots Privacy Policy Last updated: March 2026 PINtPOINT ("we", "our", "the app") is a pub and venue finder for iOS and Android. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights. What data we collect PINtPOINT collects the minimum data needed to work: Location — used to find nearby venues and point the radar compass. We request "while using the app" permission only. Location is never stored on our servers or shared with third parties. Device heading (compass) — used to orient the radar relative to the direction you're facing. Not stored. In-app preferences — your theme, radar settings and venue preferences are stored locally on your device. Favourite beers and beer alerts — if you save a beer to your watchlist or set a beer alert, that data is stored securely on our servers (Supabase) solely to power those features. It is not shared with third parties or used for advertising. What we do not collect No account or sign-up is required No name, email address, or personal details No advertising identifiers or tracking No analytics or crash reporting sent to third parties Third-party services PINtPOINT displays data from the following external sources. When you tap through to these services, their own privacy policies apply: Untappd — tap list and check-in data. See untappd.com/privacy Foursquare — venue search and discovery data used to surface nearby pubs and bars ismypubfucked.com — Financial Pressure Index (FPI) data sourced from VOA rating lists OpenStreetMap / Nominatim — venue geocoding Google Street View — venue and ghost pub images (where shown) Flickr — historical pub photographs (credited in-app) Purchases PINtPOINT offers an annual subscription (£3.99/year) to unlock premium features. All payment processing is handled by Apple (App Store) or Google (Play Store). We do not receive or store any payment card details. Children PINtPOINT is an alcohol-related app intended for adults of legal drinking age. It is not directed at children under 17. Data retention Local preferences and settings are stored on your device and removed when you uninstall the app. Favourite beers and beer alerts stored on our servers are retained until you delete them in-app or request their deletion by contacting us. Your rights You may request deletion of any data we hold about you (favourite beers and beer alerts) at any time by contacting us at hello@pintpoint.co.uk. We will action all requests within 30 days. Changes to this policy We may update this policy as the app evolves. The current version is always available at this URL. Significant changes will be noted in the app update release notes. Contact hello@pintpoint.co.uk © 2026 PINtPOINT ---