Pintley

Modern society inundates us with too many choices: 20 types of toothpaste, 30 different tomato sauces, and, like, 60 Mortal Kombatants, though technically, Scorpion and Sub Zero are the same dude. Helping at least make your beer choices easier, Pintley, now in public beta. From a former consultant who fell in love with German beer culture while studying abroad, Pintley is a Medford-based online community/super-easy service that "helps you drink better beer" by figuring out your tastes and recommending craft brews based on them, essentially operating like the "Pandora of Suds" but without accidentally taking you from DogFish 90 Min IPA to "Right Said Fred". It works like this: after creating an account, you'll immediately be asked to rate up to 30 common beers on a scale of 1-5; from there the BeerPalate engine sifts through your ratings and its library of 11,400+ beers to generate a unique taste profile and initially offer five must-try brews, though the more you rate, the smarter/more accurate the engine becomes, cluing in on your delicate palate to eventually tell you what you already knew: Red Dog f***ing rocks! Once your tastes are set, you're free to customize your profile page, search for new brews (by brewer, style, region, or pairing), friend people, write extensive tasting notes, read FB/Twitter-like newsfeeds about what your buddies are drinking, and even solicit beer suggestions based exclusively on one kind of brew, á la "If you love Right Said Fred, then you'll love..." -- except, replace Right Said Fred with Red Dog. Pintley also has a mobile-friendly version, and is poised to roll out an iPhone app, beef up the community section with more blogs/forums/reviews, post upcoming beer-related events, and add a feature that lets you interact/chat directly with brewers -- providing the perfect opportunity to yell "FINISH HIM" if you notice the dude from Red Dog nursing his beer.