Despite its explosion in popularity, craft beer is still a relatively small and tight-knit community. A generation ago when the number of breweries was a fraction of what it is today, the community was even smaller and more tight-knit. But even in those days, obsessive drinkers often fell into one of two camps: BeerAdvocate users and RateBeer users.
In the past decade, just as the innovation of craft beer upended big beer, another innovation upended the beer rating world: apps. Founded in 2010, Untappd—a new player on the beer rating scene—focused all of its energy into its app, making checking-in beers easier than ever for a new generation of craft beer enthusiasts who weren’t as interested in the older, primarily web-based sites.
By 2012, the Untappd app passed the 10 million check-in mark, a milestone on its path to becoming the new leader in beer rating, set to hit 1 billion check-ins this year. Now, that success is shaking up beer rating once again: Next Glass, Untappd’s Wilmington, NC-based ownership group, has announced it’s acquiring BeerAdvocate.
Original story published in Food & Wine.
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