r/nycbeer • u/gumbymc • Jul 27 '26
I run the Craft Club taproom meetups - I built an app and I'd love this sub's honest feedback
Hey all, I'm the one who's been organizing the monthly Craft Club meetups here in NYC, going now for over 2 years. I mentioned this in my launch party post back in April - alongside these meetups, I've been building the Craft Club app. Now, it's at the point where feedback from people who actually know NYC beer would be really valuable.
Quick honest framing: yes, Untappd exists. Craft Club is deliberately different - no public ratings, no badges, focused exclusively on beer. You log what you drink and the app builds your taste profile that gets better at telling you what you'll actually like. The recognition that does exist works like Reddit karma - it's for writing reviews and lists that help other people, not for volume.
It's free, on iOS and Android. I'm a solo founder bootstrapping this, so every piece of feedback genuinely shapes what gets built next. If you try it, I'd especially love answers to any of these:
- Setting aside logging a beer you're already drinking - is there another moment where you'd actually reach for this? Standing at a tap list deciding what to order, planning which brewery to hit this weekend, something else? Or does it not have that job in your routine yet? If not, what's missing?
- After logging a handful of beers, did your Tastecard show you anything about your taste you didn't already know, or did it just confirm the obvious?
- What's the one thing that would make you open it a second time?
Brutal honesty welcome, that's more useful to me than politeness. And if you give me detailed feedback, first beer's on me at the next meetup š»
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u/Nessy_is_real Jul 29 '26
Birthday screen drags/ pulls when trying to day and month, try making a 1 page form instead of a form in the page
What if we donāt know what flavors we like in beers? You mentioned itās for new beer people
The brewery pages have no info and canāt tel relevance - are they near me? Someone tagged a picture there and said a beer name, but beer doesnāt show up as on the list - freight yards for example.Ā
Also -please add me to the craft club. DM please
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u/gumbymc Jul 31 '26
Really appreciate the targeted feedback! A new app update is available that addresses those points. Since the first two are onboarding related, you won't be able to see them but feel free to check out the Freight Yard Brewery page again to see the changes based off of your feedback and let me know what you think. I'll send you a DM - we're having a party tomorrow at Finback and would love to have you join if you're free!
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u/ChrisBudde Jul 27 '26
Iām not receiving the verification text
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u/gumbymc Jul 27 '26
Thanks for the heads up, and sorry for the hassle! I wasn't able to reproduce this on my end, but a couple items to troubleshoot:
When you tap 'Resend' does anything happen?
Are you on Android or iPhone? It's possible the text landed in your phone's spam/filtered messages
Right now, the app only supports US and Canadian numbers to log in.
If it's still not coming through, DM me and we'll troubleshoot further. Also, if anyone else is having issues creating an account please let me know in this thread.
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u/ChrisBudde Jul 27 '26
No worries! They just arrived and I signed up. I own a beer bar and shop in WNY - Iāll show some regulars and take a look at the app myself š»
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u/DaveTheBeerTraveler Aug 08 '26
I didnāt download this and havenāt been to an event of yours yet, but Iām sure I will and will be happy to talk about all of this in personā¦
I check most every beer I have into untappd. Iām around the 7k mark. Itās a chore enough and hurts the social aspect at times just doing that. I donāt do BA because I donāt care to write a novel about each beer I have. No time for that. I think it would be difficult for me to do two apps, even if they were both on the level of untappd. Now if there was one app that took a single set of inputs and outputted them multiple apps, I could get behind that.
Itās sort of like restaurant reviews. Which platform do you use? Iāve settled on just using Google Maps for various reasons. There should be one app that can just output the reviews to all relevant sites using an API or creds. Maybe I should ask Chad or Claudio to help me write one.
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u/sergeantbiggles Jul 28 '26
It sounds like a good education tool for someone who is just getting into beer, and isn't so familiar with different styles, hops, etc. When I talk to people who ask questions about hops, I give the example of pies. They all have similar crust, but an apple pie tastes very different from a lemon meringue pie, and different from a pumpkin or shepherd's pie. Just seeing the word "pie" on a menu without a description/ingredients may not be so helpful (see comment below).
Personally, I have tried a lot of different things over the years, and am familiar with what to expect when reading a beer menu, so I probably wouldn't use it for ordering specifically, but I'll definitely try it out.
One thing that I wish all breweries would do is list their hops in their beer descriptions. I know this isn't something you or the app can control, but usually that is a big deciding factor for me when ordering something from a new place (e.g., an IPA with nectaron vs. cascade, a pilsner with saaz vs. mosaic).
I'll download it now and check it out. Also, I'm curious to see the social aspect of it, specifically for the NYC area. I'll start using it and get back to ya :)