Beer Smith Rules!

I have to say, I was a skeptic about this whole "paying for something", but I have to admit, I am into the first day of my 21 day free trial of Beer Smith and I have to say, they had me at hello.

After another frustrating process of concocting my next recipe on my spreadsheet, I decided I would give the software thing a shot. I downloaded a few apps (I am not going to name them because I honestly gave each one about a 2 sec perusal before I removed it) and was not at all satisfied with what I saw.

So, after listening to James from Basic Brewing Radio and his April 26th report on homebrew software, I decided that I should give Beer Smith a shot. All of the reviews from listeners and other folks gave an image of an application that was built for use, not for learning how to use.

After a few minutes I figured out how to create a recipe and had a nice printer friendly 2 page doc that had my shopping list and brew day essentials all in one place. This was REALLY easy to start using.

They use a Windows based UI that has the feeling of Outlook '98. This provides the user with an "at home" feeling in the app that lets you feel free to roam around and explore. Some of the critics felt the SRM indicator left something to be desired, but to be honest, I hadn't been looking at SRM up until I started with the software so I am totally happy with it.

Overall I was impressed. I like good software and this is a nice little app. Plus I think it's pretty reasonably priced for a lifetime license. I am giving the folks at Brew Smith my enthusiastic thumbs up and I am planning on adding them to my links list.

I will have a few more posts in the next week as I prep for next weekend's two brew weekend, an OktoberFest and an IPA, both concocted on my new buddy software.

Cheers.