Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to address many of the world’s largest challenges, but can it help you pour a perfect glass of beer? Two Afeka College of Engineering mechanical engineering students used a class project to try to solve one of their biggest pain points at the nearby bar.
“How many times have you been at a bar with your friends waiting for your beer, only to be served something that is warm, flat and poor-tasting?” asked Ravid Kaplan, who worked with his friend Yonatan Aloni for three semesters on the project. “Unfortunately, we have had this happen too many times.”
For their final project at the Tel Aviv college, they developed a working prototype of a smart system that can be programmed to serve any kind of beer the way it is designed to be drunk. They called it BeerZone.
“It’s not just getting the right temperature,” Kaplan said. “You wouldn’t need AI just for that. Each beer needs to be stored in the right conditions, with the right levels of foam and fizz."
“This system controls the beer all the way from the keg to the glass, controlling numerous different parameters in real time. And it can serve the perfect beer automatically, without a bartender as the middleman.”The system combines a smart pouring system that combines an advanced cooling and foaming mechanism with real-time monitoring of the beer’s characteristics.
Each BeerZone device can sit on the customer’s table or next to the bartender. It also includes a self-washing system that can perform overnight self-maintenance after the bar closes.“A bar, like any system, is a living thing that can perform better or worse depending on who is managing it,” Kaplan said. “I’ve seen some bars that were pretty poorly managed. This can help make sure that beer is always served perfectly, no matter who the bartender is.”
“Beer companies require that their beers are served at a very specific temperature, usually 2 to 4 degrees Celsius,” he said. “But most bars in Israel serve at a much higher temperature. Their standards are usually not high enough that they are going to manually monitor the temperatures themselves.”
Childhood friends Kaplan and Aloni are both 30. They grew up on the same kibbutz and previously worked as bartenders. They finished their studies at Afeka just a few weeks ago and are now looking to take their invention to the next level.
“We have started talking to an investor who a friend introduced us to, and we are ready to move forward if we find someone to fund us,” Kaplan said.
The money would be needed to move quickly from prototype to commercial development, as well as adding features such as the ability to choose exactly how much beer you want and to pay for it by swiping a credit card.“We demand beer that meets international standards, and we believe BeerZone can provide that,” Kaplan said.