Hey, It's A Beer Robot With A Discerning Palate. It Might Make Our Jobs Obsolete!
No, it's not Bender. But that would be cool. According to the New York Daily News, whose beer stories we take very seriously, there's a new beer aficionado in town: an electronic "tongue" made from electrodes that correctly identifies the style of beer you dunk it in 82% of the time. Can Katz even do that?
Katz, via G-Chat: "yeah dude, probably."
Regardless, can we first praise the Spanish scientists who took the time to develop this fancy little party trick? Then can we proclaim how logical it is to program electrodes to identify the levels of sodium, chloride, nitrates and other chemicals found in certain levels in different styles of beer? Not that we're trying to take jobs away from professional beer quality control analysts.
A few more questions before we fly out to Barcelona, kidnap the thing and put it on permanent exhibit at Food Republic HQ: can the bot tell if a beer is skunked or undercarbonated? If it can determine ABV, can it be programmed to sniff out IBUs? Can it make recommendations like "would be improved with more coriander?" Can we name it?
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