OnTap Magazine

24 | Summer 2025 | ontapmag.co.za quick recipe wizard. I set ABV and colour, and asked for “beginner-friendly.” The result was a brown ale recipe that definitely looked the part. I asked for a holiday-themed ginger brown ale, and Samupdated the late- boil additions to include ginger. The FAQ advises checking with brewing software. On inspection, this one looked brewable without edits. If I were a newbrewer, wanting a ginger brown ale, and I followed the steps in this recipe, I’d be pretty happy with the results. Sam can also help you learn. Ask about the basics of mashing and you’ll get an in- depth response detailing enzymatic activity at various temperature ranges and how this affects your beer. Ask about hop aroma and you’re quickly reading about techniques like whirlpool additions and dry hopping. Any topic you want to chat about, you can dive deeper for more detail. WHERE IT FALLS SHORT: AI “HALLUCINATIONS” But this is alsowhere its limitations show. I was able to convince Sam to tell me that adding extra priming sugar would make a sweeter beer — something an experienced brewer wouldneversay.Inreality,primingsugarraises carbonation, not sweetness, because yeast ferments it completely. These confident but incorrect responses, called “hallucinations,” remain a consistent problem with large language models like ChatGPT. LLMs are always trying to please, so lead them carefully. Don’t ask, “Will more priming sugar make it sweeter?” Ask for options and trade-offs: “Ways to increase perceived sweetness without raising FG; give pros/ cons and typical ranges.” Give clear requests with context up front (batch size, OG/FG targets, yeast, etc.). It's often better to ask for ideas rather than suggesting them, and you can even tell the AI to challenge your assumptions. And then crosscheck with brewing software and tools, and on the internet. FROM THE DEVELOPER: THE FUTURE OF AI BREWING I spoke with Will Yell at the 2025 Intervarsity Brewing competition. Sam is still in early development; Will has kept the scope small for now, focusing on usefulness over polish. While it’s already more capable than a generic chatbot at answering brewing questions, there’s still plenty of room to grow. He’s curious to see how people actually use it. Currently Sam will mention a homebrew storenearyouwhereyoucangetingredients (I was always told to go to BeyondBrewing), and while it doesn’t link to the store yet, the options around this are immediately apparent. Current chatbots are already getting to the point where they can interact with websites and fetch information for the user. Imagine an AI making you a recipe based on available ingredients at your local homebrew store. Plan a few weeks ahead, and it could even suggest where to order the more difficult to find ingredients. And this is where AI will really shine, helping you decide what to do next. AI can’t appreciate that first sniff of a freshly poured beer or feel the pride of watching your friends reach for a second pint of your new brew. However, when a batch misfires and your draught lines pour nothing but foam, you want that brewing sidekick to step up and provide you with exactly what you need to know. Is it there yet? I’m not convinced, but it’s getting close, and today is the worst it will be. For a few years now, homebrewers have been using AI to help with their brews. In the beginning, it may have just been to get a cool image of a friar holding a tankard of beer, even if said friar hadamysterious third hand. Text on those AI-generated images was notoriously dodgy, and a second programme or platform had to be used to clean it up. But I never got that far. I’m not what you would call an “early adopter,” even if you were feeling quite generous after your second strong Belgian beer. I was asked to use Brewer Sam and write a few paragraphs about my experience. Firstly, accessing Sam was as easy as opening a web browser: no sign-in or registration needed. . TRIAL AND ERROR I decided to brew my entry for the North Yeasters Artisanal Fest for this experiment, and after a few quick questions about equipment, I asked Sam about my “secret ingredient” for a sour beer. The reply was along the lines of, “That [ingredient] should not go in beer, why don’t you try these alternatives.” Hmm, not off to a good start, especially since I was replicating a beer that had gone down quitewell previously. I then played around, asking for various recipes, most of which seemed to come back with South African hop varieties. I then moved on to just giving Sam the recipe that I had used before, which came back as a Wheat Pale Ale, along with a step-by-step process instruction for a three-stage all-grain system, as did all previous recipes. The process seemed pretty much in line with how I brew, on all recipes I asked for. Brewdays have become about following routines for me, so although I asked Sam multiple questions over the course of the day, I followed my own process and experience, as the advice didn’t really differ much from what I was already doing. I did get a rather confusing hydrometer/ temperature correction from Sam at a certain point, but a calculator on a free brewing programme put my mind at ease. My brew day was, on the whole, pretty uneventful, although clean-up seems to take longer each time! TRAINING ONE’S AI Friends have suggested to me that “one needs to train one's AI," and I’ll be the first to admit that perhaps I don’t phrase my questions well enough to get the best results. I suspect I couldmake better use of Brewer Sam, so I tried rephrasing some of my questions with more details, and I did get more agreeable results, especially with my “secret ingredient.” So I probably need to play around and practice with Brewer Sam, and AI in general. I imagine for those of you well-versed in using ChatGPT or similar, Brewer Samwill seem effortless. Brewer Sam is laid out with seven headings, which when clicked on, give you prompt questions for that specific topic, for example, “Brew Science,” which then prompts with “Explain the science behind mashing, boiling and fermentation in brewing.” I would say Sam is yet another tool that a brewer can add to his/her toolbox of brewing resources, and I think it would be especially useful for the novice homebrewer. While the internet and AI have opened up greater access to information that can help you brew great beers, I would remind you that although beer is a refreshing and nourishing drink, it is above all, a social drink. So why not get down to your local brewery and meet the brewer, tell them how much you enjoy their brews, and pick their brains for tips and tricks and hard- learned lessons. If you are feeling brave, why not give them a bottle of your AI- inspired brew for feedback? Alternatively, you could reach out to one of the many homebrew clubs around the country, who will happily assist you on your brewing journey. As for my beer, at the time of writing, it has finished fermenting, is tasting great, and is currently cold crashing. But, if you want to know about that “secret ingredient,” you’ll have to come and join us at The Artisanal Beer Fest on the 6th of December in Paarl. ANDREW DELL: AN AI NOVICE GIVES BREWER SAM A TRY