Beer intelligence

Beer is one of the oldest fermented drinks known to man. He was sung in the third millennium BC. e. in the Sumerian epic about Gilgamesh. The Sumerians even had a saying: "Do not know beer - do not know joy." Modern beer is different from the drink of those times. Moreover, a large number of craft breweries have appeared, in which beer enthusiasts offer new, surprisingly tasty and fragrant varieties.

However, the brewers, trying to improve their product and offer the market something new, do not stop there, using ever new technological solutions. They got to artificial intelligence. Today we will talk about the most interesting projects related to the introduction of AI in the process of brewing and beer consumption.
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Beer fingerprint Carlsberg

The brewing giant has always been serious about new technologies, as they allow them to successfully compete in the market. Therefore, the Danes without a shadow of doubt invested in a large-scale study, called The Beer Fingerprinting Project (Beer fingerprinting). In addition to the brewers, the iNano group from Aarhus University, chemical technologists from the Danish Technical University, the Danish Innovation Fund and Microsoft Corporation participate in the project.

The brainchild of Jochen Förster, a specialist in yeast fermentation and director of the Carlsberg research group, is changing the approach to creating new beers. Researchers using high-tech sensors fine-tune subtle shades of beer taste and aroma, and also create a library of “flavor prints” of each individual sample.

The system collects data that is used to study new microorganisms useful for beer production. And, as a result, to create new beers. Now, to create a new variety, it takes at least three years. Artificial intelligence will reduce this process by three.

Microsoft in this study is responsible for the work of AI. Its solutions, including a machine learning system and a digital cloud platform , will allow us to select and create new brewing yeast for the production of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beer, increasing the speed and quality of this work.

IntelligentX Brewing Co

Perfect beer is a good combination of taste and smell. Only a person is able to catch this balance. However, London-based IntelligentX Brewing Co. I do not agree with this statement. The company has launched beer brewed using artificial intelligence.

Intelligent Layer machine learning specialists and 10x creative agency employees have created an algorithm that changes beer recipes based on customer feedback. A special chatbot screwed to the AI ​​asks questions about taste preferences that are answered “yes” or “no” or give ratings from 1 to 10. Then the machine interprets the information using the “reinforcement learning” algorithm ) to analyze what can be improved. In addition, feedback from beer lovers is accumulated in the system, trends are monitored, after which the information goes to the brewers, who can manually change the recipe.

According to IntelligentX, the varieties of beer they offer (gold, amber, light and dark) have changed 11 times over the year. You can try the result of the work of artificial intelligence for the benefit of brewing in the London Ubrew pub, whose visitors also have the opportunity to make their own beer.

Hands Free Hectare Golden Ale

Just as experienced travelers look for places where no man’s foot has stepped, beer geeks try to sip at least a sip of an amazing foamy drink made without human intervention (well, almost). A variety called Hands Free Hectare Golden Ale was born thanks to the efforts of AI, brewers and scientists.

Beer grains were grown without human intervention, which is why the project was called Hands Free Hectare. Automated tractors were used to plant barley on a 1-hectare site, and flying drones were monitored by plants by remote control. Harvest from the experimental field assembled a robot harvester.

Rowton Brewery then turned the harvest into a 4.2-degree ale, which Steve Preston, the company's chief brewer, called “a great summer beer.” Beer is presented at The Pheasant Inn Pub in Wellington, Shropshire.

Kirin Brewery

Japanese company Kirin Brewery implements artificial intelligence technology together with the Mitsubishi Research Institute. The decision to introduce technologies in the beverage industry is associated with market fragmentation by preference, the agency notes. In addition, artificial intelligence will simplify the process of training new employees.

AI algorithms will determine what taste, aroma and color a drink will have, as well as regulate the alcohol content in it. After that, artificial intelligence will introduce a beer recipe. The program will find the best brewing formulas based on test data for 20 years. A professional brewer needs at least 10 years to gain such skills.

Char-rnn

Beer enthusiast Janelle Schein discovered an unusual problem: because of the growing popularity of craft beer, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to come up with names for varieties. In the United States alone, more than 4,000 craft breweries operate. If they accidentally choose the same name for beer, this can lead to confusion or even litigation.

To create a unique name generator for craft beer, Shane used an open source, multi-layered recurrent neural network called char-rnn. It is often used to solve such problems. To train the neural network, she used a database of hundreds of thousands of beer names from BeerAdvocate.com .

It worked. The neural network produced unique names that were believable, amazing, or so outlandish that it made them want to immediately buy and try. Here are some examples of names:


Those who want to get more names can leave the researcher their email address.

Drinkshift

Japanese company DrinkShift at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas introduced a smart beer cooler with artificial intelligence, which will ensure that you never run out of beer.

In many countries of the world, there is a ban on the purchase of alcohol at night. Japan is no exception. So that the owner who is exhausted by thirst always has something to soak his throat, the refrigerator monitors beer supplies.

DrinkShift works in conjunction with a mobile application that analyzes the owner’s habits: favorite brands, the time when the owner is used to drinking beer, and the number of emptied bottles at a time. In the upper compartment, you can place 2 bottles, and in the main chamber 12. In total, the refrigerator holds up to 14 bottles.

When the beer supply is nearing the end, the device automatically orders a new batch of bottles. Of course, taking into account which brands of beer the owner prefers. You can refuse the help of AI and independently set in the application settings those brands of beer that should be in the refrigerator.



DrinkShift is designed in a minimalist style. The case is made in white, and the door imitates wood. When the device goes into mass production, it is not reported.

Not a single beer

In addition to beer, artificial intelligence is also used to create / serve other drinks.

Ailytic



If artificial intelligence is already brewing beer, then what is worse wine? In many ways, it’s even better, so the Australian company Ailytic decided to create its own AI, capable of working nicely in the field of winemaking, selecting ingredients, selecting the best time for collection and preparation.

The system developed by Ailytic analyzes various information received from factories, vineyards, and from specialists who specify the program, indicating the type of wine that needs to be worked on now - each wine variety must be produced in a certain way. All this when working on a particular variety takes into account the new AI. In addition, it monitors the condition of the finished product, paying attention to bottling, labeling, storage temperature and other conditions. This data is sent to the program in real time.

There is a stable stereotype about winemaking: that everything is done by hand, packed in special barrels, and so on. For small enterprises, this statement is relevant, but the wine industry needs a large-scale approach. This is where AI turns out to be useful. Ailytic says the program helps save money and control the process.

Mackmyra



Swedish Mackmyra, together with the Finnish IT company Fourkind and the ubiquitous Microsoft, produces the world's first whiskey created using artificial intelligence.

To better understand the role of a distiller with artificial intelligence, you first need to understand, due to which whiskey acquires its own special taste. After the first distillation, whiskey is a clear liquid that may have a faint odor and smoky aftertaste. To get the rich aroma, taste and color that we are used to, this product must spend at least three years in wooden barrels. This is the ripening phase necessary to give the drink a flavor. Barrels are not just containers, they are vital to give each blend a unique flavor.

Distillation masters can hone their skills all their lives, change components, taste and experiment, creating better flavors, turning chemical processes into art, and this is where Mackmyra wants to use AI magic.

Machine intelligence is able to do work faster than humans. And thanks to the ability of the algorithm to sift and calculate a huge amount of data, it becomes possible to find new combinations that otherwise would never have been considered.

The Mackmyra machine learning system, powered by the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and using cognitive AI services, downloads existing Mackmyra recipes (including recipes for award-winning blends), sales data, and customer preferences. Using this dataset, AI can generate over 70 million recipes that are projected to be popular and that can produce the highest quality whiskey, given the types of barrels available.

Mackmyra will go on sale in the fall of 2019.

Afterword

Combining the power and speed of AI with ingenuity and human experience can significantly expand the scope of the possible. Machines give humanity the opportunity to try something new, to consume products designed for personal preference.

Perhaps the era of personalized products awaits us. At least, it seems quite real in the production of beer, wine, whiskey, coffee and other drinks that give us vivacity and uplifting. We at Cloud4Y will definitely drink for it.

What else is useful to read on the Cloud4Y blog

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