iKeg upgrade: SteadyServ acquires beer tech company PintLabs

SteadyServ Technologies, a mobile SaaS-based inventory and management system for the beer industry, announced the acquisition of PintLabs, a provider of online beer information and data. One of SteadyServ‘s main objectives for acquiring all of PintLab’s assets is to further expand the capabilities of its iKeg software, largely through PintLabs’ popular BreweryDB.

The aim of iKeg is to make it easier for brewers, distributors and retailers to optimize their beer selection and ensure they have the right amount, in the right places, at the right time, to avoid the never fun, “Sorry, we are out of that,” conversation.

“We are proud and excited to add the deep skills and experience of the PintLabs team, as well as the industry-leading products they have developed, to the SteadyServ family,” said Steve Hershberger, chief executive officer of SteadyServ. “This acquisition puts us another step closer to delivering the new standard of performance within the three-tier system.”

Founded in 2011 by passionate beer enthusiasts Jason Austin, Garrison Locke and Shaun Farrell, PintLabs’ BreweryDB contains detailed information on more than 30,000 beers and brewers, including an overview, history, locations, label art and ingredients, as well as other core beer attributes such as style, alcohol content and bittering units.

The acquisition of this data will now provide iKeg users — on-premise restaurants and bars, brewers and distributors – with this breadth of information at their fingertips during the in-app experience. Soon, it will also allow consumers to quickly find where their favorite beers are on tap and more easily explore new beers that are trending in popularity in their geographic location.

For distributors, using iKeg with the integrated BreweryDB database helps build their own product lists and educate staff on all pertinent characteristics of each beer. In addition, breweries can ensure that the information about their beers is complete and accurate, as well as share content about the beer and the brewery. And lastly, retailers can utilize the information to promote the beers that they have on tap at any given time and provide service staff with an effective beer education and marketing tool.

“SteadyServ’s clear vision for the beer industry matches with the core beliefs of PintLabs,” said Jason Austin, co-founder of PintLabs. “Our goal of becoming the definitive source of beer industry data aligns perfectly with the efforts of the SteadyServ team. We are thrilled to join a company that is as passionate about beer and technology as we are.”

Brewers, distributors and retailers use SteadyServ’s technology as a way to easily access and manage information on the fly; tracking real time performance metrics, goals and benchmarks, as well as oversee the entire inventory and ordering process. Consumption data is tracked to provide retailers details about its customer base, which beers are selling best in the area, and which taps will give them the best return.

From the PintLabs website:

You can rest assured that we will continue to provide the BreweryDB API as a robust service on which to build your applications, and we will still be maintaining and improving BreweryMap and PocketBeer. In fact, one of the goals of this acquisition was to increase the value we provide to you. Moving forward we will also be adding new features and offering new levels of service that we’re sure will enable the creation of all kinds of new apps. We hold ourselves to a high level of service and customer support and are committed to maintaining the high level of reliable service you’ve come to expect.