Next Glass CEO Trace Smith calls Untappd users “the world’s largest audience of beer drinkers,” distinct from the proudly nerdy user bases of RateBeer or BeerAdvocate.

(BeerAdvocate is also owned by Untappd parent company Next Glass.) They’ve taken on an economic significance that is unrivaled in the industry. Untappd ratings influence bar owners’, e-retailers’, festival organizers’, and even beer distributors’ business decisions to a degree that other publications, apps, or ratings websites like RateBeer or BeerAdvocate don’t.

Untappd isn’t an accurate measure of the collective tastes of the majority, but rather creates consequences based on the preferences of a fervid minority. And when decision-makers in the industry use those views to choose which beers to make and sell, a minority of drinkers stand to wield enormous influence. Subscribe to Premiumīut, 11 years after its creation, what is now the world’s most popular beer-rating platform reflects the tastes of a more narrow subset of beer drinkers than it lets on.

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