The Brooklyn Tap House is now using a new point of sale system that incorporates both iPads and iPod touches. The Brooklyn Tap House has one of the most extensive ale choices of any establishment that I have seen and now they can all be accessed and ordered using an iPad or iPod touch.

The gastropub has installed a point-of-sale system from Albuquerque-based POSLavu that uses the Apple devices in place of a much more expensive traditional restaurant POS system. The main attraction for the POSLavu system, according to restauranteur and co-owner Hugo Salazar, was the price. Many restaurants use systems from Micros or Aloha that can sport price tags of US$20,000 or more; the bottom line for the devices and software at the Brooklyn Tap House was about $7,000.

Source: TUAW, Brooklyn Tap House

An elderly Chinese lady was stopped at customs trying to import more than 200 iPhones hidden inside used beer bottles. The iPhones which are available for a lot less in Hong Kong were being imported into Shenzhen China.

Collecting beer bottles is not that suspicious of a pastime for some as they can be given to recycling centers in exchange for a small payment. This time however customs officers were highly suspicious due to the weight of the bottles. On further investigation, officers discovered that the bottles had been tampered with. Each bottle had been professionally cut in half and each one loaded with three iPhones; they had then been taped back together.

The bottles contained a total of 216 iPhones, a mixture of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 models. It makes you wonder about the lengths these smugglers will go just to get the iPhones back into China; where they are actually made. This seems like a highly complicated procedure and a very clever one too!

Source: MIC gadget

The folks over at Red Pepper Land came up with an ingenious way to get Siri to pour you a cold glass of beer, completely hands free, using Twitter, an Arduino controller and an R/C toy car. They call it Beeri, and I want it..

When Beeri sees a new Tweet containing the word “pour” she triggers the sequence of preprogrammed pour commands (go, stop, adjust) that interface with the truck’s circuit board to control her movement. Her route is preprogrammed (drive straight) until her two proximity detectors sense her moving away from the puncture wall after impact. This allows her to halt the driving sequence and adjust to a 6 inch depth in order to get the beer to enter the funnel. With a clean pint glass underneath to collect the liquid gold, the only thing left to do is enjoy your tasty beverage.

Hey, no one promised you the cool new future wouldn't be a little messy, right?

Source: Red Pepper Land

Untappd, the "Foursquare for beer" social check-in service, has released their official iPhone app. You can now check-in to what beer you're drinking with the option of adding location information for sharing with friends on the network.

Previously limited to a webapp, the native app offers a number of welcomed features including Notifications and the ability to upload photos with your check-in. Get ready to drink socially...

Untappd is a new way to socially track, rate, & share with your friends what beers you're enjoying, as well as where you're enjoying them. You can see what beers are trending nearby and where you can find them. Untappd will also share recommendations based on your drinking preferences. Curious about a specific beer? See what other users are saying about it and add it to your wish list to make sure you remember to find it! As you explore more brews and locations, you will uncover a variety of badges.

• Track & rate what beers you have and share them with your friends
• Upload a photo of the beer your having and sharing it with your friends.
• Notifications of your friends comments and toasts
• Geolocation enabled so you can tag your location & see what’s trending nearby
• Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare & Gowalla integration for social sharing
• Toast and comment on your friends beers
• Earn a wide variety of badges
• See what beers are trending nearby and where to find them

Untappd is available for the iPhone and iPod touch for free.

App Store Link

AppsVersusRobots have updated their beer tracking app, Brewski Me, with the ability to give half-star ratings and more awards.

• Check into beers and locations
• Discover and share new beers
• See what your friends are drinking and meet other beer geeks
• Rate and review beers
• Create your beer Wish List
• Stock your Beer Cellar and keep track of your Favorites
• Earn Award Caps

The update includes:

• The number one requested feature: half-star ratings! Dial in your brew reviews!
• Bug fixes, including those with 24-hour format devices.
• New background features to enable more awards!

My husband is a huge beer fan (and snob), so I look forward to using this to keep track of his favorites. Now I won't have to ruin the surprise of bringing beer home by calling to ask him which kind to get!

Brewski Me is free for the iPhone. Screenshots after the break.

[iTunes link]

Have an app you'd love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

What do you get if you take an iPhone, a mini fridge, some compressed air and a clever guy to mash it all together? A beer firing, iPhone controlled mini fridge, that’s what. Personalbeerrobot has posted a YouTube video showing this crazily brilliant invention in action. The fridge is controlled via a web app on the iPhone and it allows you to control the temperature that you are storing the beer at as well as select between four different brands.

Once the beer has been selected, you then switch to the canon cam, this is a video camera which shows you where the fridge will shoot the beer can to. You can aim using the iPhone screen, hit fire and then hopefully catch the flying beer. So there you go, instant beer delivery to your favorite armchair without you moving a muscle, perfect. The system even has the facility to submit a video of your beer can flying hopefully into your hands directly to twitter.

Personalbeerrobot is already working on some updates, like crosshairs to show more clearly where the beer will land along with a timer function. You can follow his progress @MyBeerRobot.

So if and when these go into production, whose first in line for one?

[Personalbeerrobot]

Yet another iPhone related lawsuit only this time it does not involve Apple... shocking isn't it?

Coors beer company is being sued by Hottrix, creators of the strangely popular iBeer app for a cool 12.5 million for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that Coors copied its iPhone application iBeer. Both Hottrix's App and Coors' iPint simply create the illusion of beer being poured out when a user tilts the handset as if the user is drinking it. The only major difference between the two apps is that iBeer costs $3 and iPint was free - it has been pulled from the App Store by Apple.

More or less, the lawsuit claims that iBeer was a success until iPint quickly stole it's thunder by being offered for free. Stop and think about this, both Apps were released on July 11th so how is one to determine who really came up with the idea? Hottrix answer, this youtube video that was released back in August of 2007.

Why someone would spend 3 bucks on such a App, I have no clue. But Coors... come on, talk about a blatant rip off. Hottrix, 12.5 million? Seriously?

(Via Gizmodo)