Social Beer Website ►http://untappd.com
Untappd is all the rage with beer nerds these days. It’s kinda like a foursquare for beer, where you “check-in” to beers, earn badges, and of course, see what (and where) your friends are drinking. The Untappd devs were kind enough to even put support in for homebrewed beers, allowing brewers to enter their own creations into the system.
... and how nerds deal with it ...
While Untappd has great Android and iOS apps, it always seemed silly to me while at home to have to find my phone every time I pulled a pint off the ole kegerator.
Untappd Kegerator ►http://www.3d0g.net/brewing/untappd-kegerator
While surfing Seeed Studio one day, I noticed some nice hall-effect flow sensors. They were pressure safe, and made of nylon so they could handle carbonated beer with no problems. I also knew I had an extra Arduino Ethernet Shield languishing about and so the germ of an idea began to form... what if my kegerator could check-in my pours automatically?
A little digging around the Untappd website yielded the last piece of the puzzle - an API!
►http://www.3d0g.net/_/rsrc/1341074371150/brewing/untappd-kegerator/20120628_183216.jpg?height=240&width=320
How it works:
An interrupt routine on an Arduino calculates the RPM of flow sensors installed in the tap beer lines. Once it notices a tap flowing, it performs a beer “checkin” API call to api.untappd.com, lights the corresponding LED, and begins a 5 minute “lockout” timer to prevent multiple check-ins (from topping off a pint, etc). ...
The entire howto and build manual is downloadable from the author’s website.