Beer Alchemy vs iBrewmaster

Know this question has been asked before in years past, but I am hoping to get an updated view point.

Looking to purchase an app for my iPad and desktop (both mac) that can be used as a tool to assist with brewing. Beer Alchemy and iBrewMaster seem to be the top two choices from what I can gather. Both seem to have their positives and negatives, and i am having a hard time figuring out where to put my money. If you have any experience with either, positive or negative, please let me know.

Thanks

-Curt-

I have an iPhone/iPad app (Beerulator) that works for waters amounts in all-grain brewing and for force carbonation. It's pretty simple and handy. Hope this helps.

I use BeerAlchemy on both my Mac and iPhone, and it's pretty good. The iBrewMaster interface just seems way too cluttered and confusing.

One of the things I have noticed about ibrewmaster is that there seem to be a lot of recipes for it from Northern Brewer. Have you found the same (not necessarily from northern brew) to be true about beer alchemy?

Im a new brewer and love iBrewmaster. I think it simple to use ( check out the more section for nice iverview and tuitorials. It does great calculations for you, has brewing timers to let you know when to add hops,etc during boil, and schedules for when to move or bottle. Well worth the low price to me.

I use BeerAlchemy, and like it a lot. I've been in contact with Steve from Kent Place Software about some needed features, and he says that BeerAlchemy 2 will be out later this year with a lot of improvements. Not sure if that helps you now, but I can't wait for BA2.

I use BeerAlchemy on a Mac and BeerAlchemy Touch on an iPod touch. I really like BeerAlchemy, except for a couple of shortcomings, like units handling weirdness and the lack of an adjustment for dilution of the mineral profile. BeerAlchemy Touch is less useful to me. The units are even more obtuse (salts measured in oz/gallon, srsly?) but it's nice to have my records synced on the iPod.

BeerAlchemy has a free trial.

I got my new Ipad3 last night and bought Beer Alchemy. I was able to take my BeerSmith recipes and export them as BeerXML and them import then easily into Beer Alchemy.

I downloaded iBrewmaster (stupid iName...) a couple of weeks ago, and have been very impressed. Much better than the much-advertised but constantly crashing BrewPal. I haven't tried BeerAlchemy, but iBrewmaster seems to be a very good extension to BeerSmith on the desktop.

I also just downloaded iBrewmaster a few days ago. I just built my first recipe and I really like it. Its easy once you figure out that you have to click edit before you can do anything. It was a lot faster than when I use Beer Tools Pro on my mac. Scaling recipes is simple too. There are too many things hidden in the depths of BTP and Beersmith that I could never find.

I can't speak for BeerAlchemy, but the screen shots of both lead me to choose ibrew. I like how everything is on one screen. It may look cluttered but its nice to not have to dig through tabs to find anything.

I'm pretty much locked out of beer alchemy now, and can't access my recipes. it's Version 1.8.23 (1.8.23)...customer service so far has been fruitless- I've entered my serial numbers several times in the past after repeatedly receiving "free trial expired" pop-ups (much to my annoyance) but now i'm completely froze out because the "next" button you are supposed to click after entering serials is gray and unclickable. I can not even access the recipes I put in there. I am freaking annoyed!

I love Beer Alchemy. Use it on my mac, iPad, and iPhone.

With that said - I really wish there was a PC version. Now that I've mostly switched from a mac back to a PC (work related) I get annoyed that I can't sync my recipes and stuff back unless I use my Mac.

lupulos said:

...customer service so far has been fruitless-

Click to expand...

That seems odd to me. I've been using BeerAlchemy for about years. When I got a new computer I just emailed Kent Software and asked for a registration number, all I had to do was provide the email address that I used when I purchased and they got me a new registration number.

I haven't looked at ibrewmaster at all, but I can say for sure that after downloading the beersmith trial I was quite disappointed. The interface was confusing and overall poorly organized compared to BeerAlchemy.

I absolutely love BeerAlchemy. I highly recommend it.

Yeah, I have to say that I loved it, when I could use it. And customer service was prompt with several responses. They even provided me a new serial number, and told me that the "next" button would stay gray unless a valid serial number/user name is entered. No dice; apparently they gave up on me. I suppose it could be something with my iMac...it's a bummer though because that's the only place I kept the last several recipes I made!