iKeg
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Daily Update for November 22, 2013
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iKeg makes sure the local bar has beer on hand for your Friday Afternoon Club
For beer drinkers, there's nothing worse than going to your usual watering hole on Friday afternoon (or any other time) only to find out that your favorite brew isn't available. Statistics show that bar patrons will actually drink one-third less during a visit if they're "forced" to consume a beer that's not their "usual." So for bar owners and beer distributors alike, it's critical to know when a keg is getting low in order to keep the suds flowing. That's where iKeg, from SteadyServ Technology, comes in handy. It's a multi-part solution to a problem that's plagued bartenders and beer drinkers for hundreds of years; knowing when a keg is going to run dry. To start off with, each keg of frosty brew is equipped with a SteadyServ sensor that sends out a constant stream of information to the cloud over a wireless (WiFi and cellular) connection: how much beer is in the keg, the type and style of the beer, when it was delivered to the bar, when it was tapped, its age and an estimate of when the keg might run dry. The horror... the horror... Steady Serv's cloud service then combines that data with other information like the next scheduled delivery date and previous orders, consumption trends (both at the bar and other bars nearby), event information (patrons might drink more during a local sporting event) and local weather forecasts. That info can generate alerts to order another keg just in time for it to arrive as the last draw is pulled from the tap. Of course, there's an app for all this. The SteadyServ iKeg App (free) is targeted to those brewers, distributors and bartenders who keep the important stuff flowing toward our thirsty mouths. I won't go into detail about it; for that, there's a video embedded below showing you everything you need to know. Just sit back, sip a pint of that lovely ale as you watch and try not to get too bored with the narrator. On behalf of all the beer drinkers who read TUAW, I want to thank SteadyServ for helping keep the world a happier place. Now, be sure to point your local barkeep to this post, OK?
