Your craft beer may be artisanal, but the cold ones made with blockchain are now the talk of the town. Eater SF reports that tech giant Oracle is running a beta test with local, Bay Area-based Alpha Acid Brewing Co.
“There’s the cool factor — I want to see how my beer was produced,” Prasen Palvankar, a senior director of product management at Oracle, total Eater SF.
Alpha Acid’s microbrewery and taproom just got a tech makeover using data sensors to track everything from the tanks filled with beer and the hops at the farm to the yeast lab and the malthouse.
Oracle’s blockchain solution enables Alpha Acid to log every transaction in this brewing supply chain.
As a secure, decentralized ledger, blockchain shines when it comes to supply chain management. Oracle’s blockchain solution enables Alpha Acid to log every transaction in the brewing supply chain. In this beta test, the supply chain culminates with QR scans from those imbibing at the upcoming Oracle Code One conference, where the company intends to showcase this partnership and, yes, unveil kegs from the collaboration.
While the partnership has a decidedly fun spin, Palvankar describes blockchain as an asset to serious supply chain woes such as “recalls, issues with raw materials, [and] issues that may happen during transportation.” Knowing exactly where issues lie can help makers be less wasteful should a recall occur.
While this pain point affects certain industries more acutely, including semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, scrappy businesses that use premium ingredients like Alpha Acid can stand to gain in the case of, say, blockchain sensors picking up the temperature on overheated shipments that can longer be used.
Even if blockchain never catches on with breweries, brewer Kyle Bozicevic expressed satisfaction with the venture since blockchain can help them tell “the story of why this beer is special, what makes it different from something generic you can get at a grocery store.”
We’ll raise a glass to that.