Top 5 free social drinking apps

Drinking is nothing if not a social activity. There’s nothing better than sitting around a table at your favorite bar with your favorite people drinking your favorite beer, talking, laughing and enjoying the night. Now, social drinking apps are making it easier to share those fun times with all your friends. These five iPhone apps can help you keep track of your drinks, discover new beers and share your beerventures with all your friends. And to top it off, they’re all free because I know you’d rather be spending that money on beer instead of apps.

Side Note: Sorry Android users, I’m not sure if these apps are available to you as well. I’m pretty sure I know only one person with an Android, so majority rules. Fun Fact: All six Bitch Beer girls and all of our beer-loving girl friends have iPhones.

Brewski Me: Bewski Me is the most straight forward social drinking app. With no bells and whistles, it allows you to share what you’re drinking with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Its monster database has almost any beer you could think of, which is incredibly helpful when making your beer wishlist. Although this app may not have all the fanciness of the other apps on this list, it is beautifully designed with a wood grain theme that continues throughout the whole app.

Untappd: Untappd is the most widely used social drinking app. It allows you to easily find your beer, take a picture of it, and share it on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Untappd also has a ridiculously huge database, but even if you’re able to stump the app, it has a feature that lets you add any beer to the database. One of my favorite parts of the app is the Discover tab. Here, you can find nearby bars and awesome beers on tap at those bars. The Discover tab also lets you create meet ups with your other Untappd friends; however if you’re not nearby your friends, the feature won’t work very well.

BrewGene: This app is a little bit different than the other apps on this list. While BrewGene does have a social feature that lets you share your beer of choice with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, it’s main focus is beer exploration. With features like Beer of the Day and Top 100, the app constantly exposes you to new and exciting beers you won’t want to wait to drink. FYI today’s beer is Avery Brewing Company‘s Maharaja, which I have never heard of and now can’t wait to try, so mission accomplished, BrewGene.

BeerCloud: This may be my new favorite beer app. It has all the best features that other beer apps offer and more. One of my favorites is the scanner. Just scan the bar code of any beer, and the app brings up an overview of the beer including the ABV, description, tasting notes, where you can find it near you and more. Another feature I love is the Sommelier. This feature suggests beer pairings for whatever you’re eating — including lots of vegetarian food! Unfortunately BeerCloud has two big flaws. First, registration takes way too long and makes you go through several long steps including joining Great Brewers and filling out a real long form. And second, BeerCloud’s database is missing some small yet very prominent local Austin brewers like (512), Thirsty Planet and Jester King. Despite all that, the awesomeness of this app completely makes up for these two shortcomings.

Such adorable badgers.

Beerby: I really wanted to review Beerby. I’ve heard from many beer lovers and beer bloggers that it’s the best social drinking app out there. Unfortunately, the creators of Beerby (pronounced beer-bi) didn’t have enough as much time to put into the app as it needed, so they shut it down earlier this year. From what I’ve learned, it provided a great way to track and rate your beer, find bars nearby and share what you’re drinking with your friends. It also had the cutest badges — or badgers as Beerby called them — you could earn. Every badge had an adorable badger in a costume that related to the badge. There was even a Storm Trooper badger! So here’s to hoping that one day, the Beerby creators find some extra time on their hands and revive this beloved app.

-Holly