Craft Check Blog

After patching a bug that broke literally the one thing the app is supposed to do, celebrated craft beer application Craft Check fixed the bug before immediately issuing a completely superfluous press release touting their basic ability to support their app.

“We really wanted to ensure that we issued a press release,” said Craft Check co-creator Barrett Garese, “though I couldn’t quite remember whether co-creator was spelled as a single word or a hyphenation, making writing this sentence twice as hard as it should have been.”

While not even remotely approaching the kind of serious news and think pieces that the craft beer world generally gravitates towards such as “We’re now canning beers in cans that we’ve only previously bottled in bottles” or “One brewmaster doesn’t like what other brewmaster said, tells twitter,” Craft Check’s press release nonetheless spanned nearly a dozen paragraphs before hiding any real information way down at the bottom, far below what any rational human would read.

“I debated for a while whether we should post this to the craftbeer.com website or not,” Garese continued, forgetting whether he was supposed to refer to himself by first or last name, “because I really wondered whether they’d pull my access and/or yell at me. In the end, whether or not you read it there will have answered the question.”

Craft Check has a history of not taking this part of the job particularly seriously, with previous press releases touting their ambitions to “continue the company’s nefarious plans for ruling the world on a scale heretofore unseen by craft beer mobile applications,” or including parody songs set to overexposed Disney movies. This new press release takes their press releases to a new and innovative level, raising or lowering the bar for all of their press releases to come.

The press release then went on to separate single sentences into new paragraphs, seemingly to emphasize information, but really just continuing the superfluous theme.

“Rudy put me in charge of this,” continued Barrett, going for both name reference options just to ensure he got at least one of them right, “because I am literally useless for any of the actual work involved in this app, and I really feel like he may be thinking even that was a mistake right about now.”

Craft Check’s update is probably already on your phone if you have automatic updates enabled, and if you don’t then you really should. For reasons.

Craft Check is available free for iOS and Android at: CraftCheckApp.com/get-craft-check 

“Oh,” Barrett added as an afterthought, “we also completely revamped the iOS user interface in preparation for major changes coming to both platforms in the near future,” before declining to elaborate further and abruptly ending the press release.

ABOUT CRAFT CHECK
Craft Check was created by Rudy Jahchan and Barrett Garese, and is the world’s most popular craft beer verification app. First released in 2014, Craft Check has since been featured in Fortune Magazine, NPR, Fast Company, Wired, Parade, and nearly a hundred beer, mobile app, and cool hunting blogs, despite writing idiotic press releases like this one.

That’s a pop culture reference that doesn’t have anything to do with anything we’re doing, but I was told to open with a pop culture reference, so it was either that or piling onto some new meme bandwagon.

So you may or may not notice in the coming days that you’re getting an update to Craft Check. You may or may not be asking yourself what’s different. We may or may be about to tell you right now.

Keep reading

After two years in the iOS app store, Craft Check is now available for free on Android, bringing all the functionality of the celebrated craft beer app to the world’s most popular smartphone platform, and setting in motion an audaciously villainous plot to take over the world.

Los Angeles, CA - January 22, 2016 - Craft Check today announced the release of a brand new Android app that brings the world’s most popular craft beer verification app to the world’s most popular mobile operating system, while continuing the company’s nefarious plans for ruling the world on a scale heretofore unseen by craft beer mobile applications.

Coming off of a highly successful public beta, Craft Check for Android matches the features of the recently released iOS version 2.0, including Craft Check’s simple barcode scanning, brewery search, background database updates, improved sharing options, and ownership information for non-craft beers, all while surreptitiously furthering the company’s insidious and power-mad plans for world domination.

“There’s been a real vacuum of evil in the craft beer market for some time,” said Craft Check co-creator Barrett Garese, stroking what appeared to be the beginnings of a goatee. “Most breweries are composed of genuinely good people, with even the most ambitious breweries barely reaching above slightly evil - aside from AB-InBev, obviously. So a few years back we saw the opportunity for some good old-fashioned Bond-villain style world domination, and decided the time was right to fill that malevolent vacuum. Launching Craft Check for Android was the first step towards our nefarious ulterior motives.”

With Craft Check’s Android app joining the existing iOS app, Craft Check now allows 95% of smartphone users to scan their beers and immediately know whether that beer comes from a genuine craft brewery or a crafty imposter owned by a multinational beverage conglomerate. Moreover, ensuring the app reaches the broadest possible audience of craft beer lovers lays the groundwork for the company’s upcoming expansion into new features, additional information, and diabolically fiendish schemes.

“Right now we’re looking for an evil headquarters, but as a startup, finding a decent volcano lair, secluded island, or even a mountain fortress that we can afford is particularly difficult - especially given the overpriced Southern California real estate market. Also Rudy really wants a moat, which is a whole different can of worms. I mean, the maintenance costs alone are egregious for any newly sinister organization.”

Craft Check co-creator Rudy Jahchan only looked on silently, nodding in apparent approval and smiling menacingly whenever Barrett mentioned a synonym for “evil.”

Craft Check is available free for iOS and Android at: CraftCheckApp.com/get-craft-check

CRAFT CHECK FEATURES

* Scan a barcode or search by brewery name to instantly find out whether the beer you’re looking at is a genuine Craft Brewery or just a crafty imitation from the big guys.

* Uses the Brewers Association definition of American Craft Brewery to determine the status of thousands of Craft Breweries, with new breweries added every week.

* Background updates ensure the app is always up to date for new breweries, buyouts, and changes in the beverage industry.

* Ownership information for non-craft breweries.

* Share results on social media and connect with genuine craft breweries.

* Inadvertently further the company’s sinister machinations.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Craft Check is available free for iOS and Android at: CraftCheckApp.com/get-craft-check

ABOUT CRAFT CHECK

Craft Check was created by Rudy Jahchan and Barrett Garese, and is the world’s most popular craft beer verification app. First released in 2014, Craft Check has since been featured in Fortune Magazine, NPR, Fast Company, Wired, Parade, and nearly a hundred beer, mobile app, and cool hunting blogs. As of January 2016, Craft Check does not own a volcano lair or island fortress and operates entirely minion-less, much to Barrett’s chagrin.

PRESS CONTACT:

Barrett Garese

[email protected]

www.craftcheckapp.com

Logo, screenshots, and other related materials available at: CraftCheckApp.com/

This update fixes the “receive ALL the notifications!” issue some of you have been having. Now there are no notifications. Trust us: it’s an improvement.

Existing beta users should find their app has updated automatically. If your app doesn’t automatically update, or if you’d like to join the Android beta, you can download it manually at

CraftCheckApp.com/Android or https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.craftcheckapp.craftcheck#_=_

Do you want to build a snowman? an Android beta?

After more than a year of answering the “Where is Android?” question with “Coming soon…” we’re finally able to say “Out now! Sort of!” We know - subtle. But as of the moment you see this, Craft Check is officially in public beta for Android!

A couple caveats:

1) This is our first Android app, and we were only able to test on some of the more popular devices. So we know there are most likely a couple issues here and there - help us improve the experience for you and everyone else by sending us any issues you might have so that Barrett can yell at Rudy until he cries we can fix them.

2) You may notice a number of updates over the next couple weeks as we release new versions with little tweaks here and there.

What’s the difference between the iOS and Android versions? None. They’re functionally identical. It was important to us that we not release a cut-down or compromised version as is so common to Android apps. So despite how much extra work it was for us Rudy, we he buckled down and delivered. If you get the opportunity, definitely buy us him a beer. A craft beer. Maybe use an app to check it. (That’s a hint.)

3) Barrett is pretty much useless when it comes to coding, so while Rudy was slaving over a console for untold hours upon end, Barrett took ten solid minutes and wrote a song about our Android release to the tune of Do You Want To Build A Snowman - we know, timely.

Do you want an Android beta?
Come on let’s go and scan!
We see you’re holding crafty beer
We’re finally here
To save you from that can!

The packaging says Craft Beer
But no it’s not.
They hope that you’re just a fool.

Do you want an Android Beta
(It’s pretty solid for a beta.)
We think it’s cool.

Do you want an Android Beta?
It scans and searches all the beer.
We really think that it is overdue
You knowing real craft brew
Is everything they fear!

We made it really simple
You just scan and know
So Craft Beer is all you’ll buy

Do you want an Android Beta?
We worked real hard to get a beta.
Give it a try.

4) Thanks for supporting us, and for not giving up every time we told you Android was coming soon. We really think it was worth the wait, and can’t wait to hear what you think!

You can grab our beta at CraftCheckApp.com/Android

You may have noticed a shiny new Craft Check update sitting in your notifications - don’t panic, everything’s going according to plan!

• By user request, we added a button to let users manually trigger the flash to improve barcode scanning in dark or low-light scenarios.
• As this flash button was a feature we’d previously removed, we really tried to fit in a “Dark Night Returns” joke, but it just wasn’t happening today. Maybe next time.
• We fixed a bug that caused some users with iPhone 4S models to experience application crashes when they attempted to scan a barcode. Or just open the scan screen. Or click a button. We decided this was ultimately a suboptimal user experience, so we removed the “Instacrash on 4S” feature and replaced it with “Read The Documentation" and “Now It Doesn’t Crash on 4S Anymore” features.
• Read the documentation.
• Continued to be surprised that Apple lets us publish these as our official documented changeling in the app store.