Drinking Beer? There's An App For That

A couple smartphone apps have been introduced recently that will help Kansas Citians find, learn about and be rewarded for drinking beer.

Today, Boulevard launched their 'Boulevard Beer Finder' app, which allows users to find Boulevard products in nearby retail establishments or bars. You can select an individual beer and set a mileage range for  the application to search within, either based off your GPS location or a zip code of your choosing. According to the official description, the app also allows you to "learn fun Boulevard facts to impress your friends, and socialize with other Boulevard devotees through social media links."

The Boulevard Beer Finder app is currently only available for iOS users (so I couldn't test it out personally, cue sad trombone), but Boulevard says that a version for Android users should be available in December. You can download the app in the iTunes app store.


The other phone application that is now available is the KC Hopps Guest Rewards App. Though not specifically related to beer, this should come as good news to anyone who drinks their fair share of beer at KC Hopps bars/restaurants and likes to reap the benefits of earning points toward future beer purchases. And there's the obvious added benefit for people like myself who hate carrying around 3,000 different rewards cards.

Now this app I WAS able to test, and it came at the perfect time because I lost my physical Guest Rewards card a couple months ago and had been too busy (read: too lazy) to call and request a new one. Available for both iOS and Android devices, the app is pretty simple; find where you are, check in to where you are, be presented with a code, and either add or use your rewards points/dollars by giving your server/bartender said code before paying. And of course, there's a My Account overview where you can review your reward totals. Though both times I used the app, the servers seemed a little bewildered at first, it was a smooth process and the transactions went through without a hitch. The one thing I wish the app had was a record of points earned and used by individual date, to ensure things are getting added and subtracted correctly.

If you are interested in the KC Hopps Guest Rewards app, just search for 'KC Hopps' in either iTunes or the Google Play store. Note that you need to have a previously existing rewards account to use it, you can't start a new rewards account through the app itself.