There are plenty of ingredients that go into the making of a great beer, but did you know that the key ingredient is data?
Well, OK, not really, but a new craft beer has been created by Havas Helia, which essentially taps into social media information to create a beer based on the mindsets of people around the world.
The idea first came to Havas Helia back at the end of 2015, with the goal being to create a beer that was representative of the feelings that came along with the New Year. So, the scientists set out to analyze social media posts for emotional keywords, then compared the keywords with emotional states. A total of 38 distinct emotions were associated with that time period, including optimism, love and excitement heading into the New Year.
The company then partnered up with IBM Watson to create a recipe. Using the Watson technology, 2,800 recipes were analyzed using criteria like ingredients and reviews. Watson Personality Insights then assigned keywords like "friendly" or "intelligent" to each recipe.
Havas Helia was then able to pull in the top 10 beers that were most similar to the New Year's emotions that it observed, then took the most common ingredients from those beers and made a new beer called "0101."
Unfortunately, only 500 bottles of the "fine tasting cream ale" were ever created at the High Peak Brew Co., which is based in Chapel-En-Le-Frith, Barbyshire, England. If you want to taste the beer for yourself, however, you can enter a competition by heading over to the beer's website.
