Hop to it! Great brewing and beer apps for your Android smartphone

When the weathers nice, many people find themselves sitting outside a local tavern sampling all manner of tasty summer ales. If youve ever wanted to try your hand at homebrewing, or simply hope to discover great ales and breweries nearby, your Android device is a goldmine. Tap into these helpful apps.

Beer + List, Ratings and Reviews ($3.99)

Before you even think of homebrewing, you probably want to taste a lot of ales from various parts of the world so you get an idea about their flavors and complexity. Beer + List, Ratings and Reviews is an ideal companion app because you can track the ale youve tried by keeping a journal with tasting notes. That way, youll never forget that unique microbrew you experience at the local beer festival.

Pintley Beer Recommendations (Free)

Another good companion app for the beer lover is Pintley Beer Recommendations. Unlike apps which simply commend an ale because of reviews or character, Pintley actually learns what youve enjoyed previously from your ratings and notes to make more informed recommendations. With a library of over 17,000 beers, Pintley can help refine your palate.

Download the Appolicious Android app

BreweryMap ($0.99)

So youve discovered which types of ale you truly enjoy. Before you jump head-first into brewing your own, its a good idea to take some time to tour local breweries to see how the experts do it. BreweryMap is a relatively new app which is like having a beer guide in your pocket. With 3,000 breweries mapped out offering 8,500 beers, it shouldnt be too hard to find somewhere close by. Developers promise better search capabilities and more breweries listed in future updates.

Find Craft Beer ($0.99)

Another good option is the Find Craft Beer app, as it looks for more than just breweries. It uses GPS to determine your current location, or you can provide it with a specific city to search. Youll get results from a large database of nearby brew pubs, breweries, beer bars, beer stores and homebrew shops.

HomeBrewTalk Mobile Forum (Free)

So youve tasted many an ale, visited numerous pubs, toured local breweries and bought a whole bunch of supplies. Now that youre finally ready to tackle homebrewing, the HomeBrewTalk Mobile Forum app is going to come in super handy, especially if youre down in the basement or in the garage away from the laptop. Check-in to this mobile app version of the popular brewing web community and youll find recipes, DIY building tips, pub reviews, equipment reviews, and plenty of helpful advice.

BrewR - Brew Recipe Manager (Free)

Heres where things get a bit more sophisticated and complicated, but homebrewers will find this app to be highly useful. Depending on the ingredients you have around, youll be able to design beer recipes on the go. It handles all the hard work and tricky mathematical formulations usually required and even includes a timer. It can calculate the OG (original gravity), FG (final gravity), IBU (bitterness), color and the estimated alcohol content of your concoction, supporting both metric and U.S. imperial units.

Brewzor Calculator Free (Free)

Admittedly, there are a whole heap of similar apps in Google Play, but Brewzor Calculator covers so many in a single app and has some very positive reviews. It can calculate a lot of complicated, technical things essential for a good homebrewing experience like strike temperature, mash infusion, decoction volume, yeast pitching rate and batch sparge. We would explain what all these mean, but were too drunk right now.