Comparison

Beer Lab vs BrewSmart

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Beer Lab

Design and create your own craft beers at home. This app provides tools to adjust ingredients, predict beer characteristics like color and strength, and scale recipes. It also offers step-by-step brewing instructions and helpful calculations for brew day.

Highlights
  • Design beers with templates
  • Adjust ingredients and predict beer characteristics
  • Scale recipes by ABV, volume, and bitterness
  • Step-by-step brew day instructions
  • Hydrometer and priming sugar calculations
  • Unit conversion (Metric/Freedom)
Read full description

Beer Lab helps you make craft beer at home • Design beers using templates and then save them in your library • Add, remove and tweak quantities of ingredients with immediate predictions of colour, strength (ABV) and bitterness (IBUs) • Scale recipes by adjusting strength (ABV), litres produced and bitterness (IBUs) • Make brew day super simple with step by step instructions for the brew in a bag process • Quickly work out how strong your beer will be, adjust hydrometer readings for temperature or work out how much priming sugar to use • Switch between Metric and Freedom units for easy recipe conversions • Send your recipe to your Grainfather

About

BrewSmart

This app helps you calculate coffee ratios, guides you through brewing, and logs your results. It offers precise measurements and personalized adjustments for your next brew. Enjoy a seamless coffee preparation experience with its intuitive interface and helpful features.

Highlights
  • Instant ratio calculation
  • Guided pour-over timer
  • Brew journal with ratings
  • Dial-in assistant for taste adjustments
  • Apple Watch brew coach
  • Home screen widgets
  • Lock screen live activity
Features
Read full description

BrewSmart is your complete coffee brewing companion. Calculate the ratio, get coached through every pour, log the cup, then dial in the next one. Share the winner as a link that opens right in a friend's BrewSmart. All in one fast, focused app. No ads. No subscriptions. Adjust water, coffee, or ratio and the other two update instantly. Perfect for pour over (V60, Chemex, Kalita), AeroPress, French press, moka pot, drip, and espresso, whether you're dialing in a new single-origin or scaling up a batch. THE BREWING LOOP 1. Calculate. Tap or swipe water, coffee, or ratio; the others recalculate instantly. No keyboard, no guessing. Precise to 0.1 g. 2. Brew. Turn any recipe into a guided, step-by-step pour with target weights, timing cues, and a live countdown to your next pour. 3. Log. Save every brew to your journal with a rating, notes, grind, and temperature. Edit any detail later. 4. Dial in. Tell BrewSmart how the cup tasted (too sour or bitter, weak or strong) and get a specific adjustment for your next brew. FEATURES Brew Calculator Tap or swipe water, coffee, or ratio; the other two recalculate instantly. Pour Guide Turn any recipe into a step-by-step guided brew with target weights and timing cues. Start from the built-in pour schedule, or build your own pours with a bloom and custom targets. A live countdown ticks down to your next pour. Or keep it simple with the plain timer. Clip Recipes from the Web Found a brew guide online? Paste the link and BrewSmart reads the recipe off the page: coffee, water, temperature, and every pour. Review it before anything is saved. A daily limit applies. Share Recipes by Link Send any recipe as a link. It unfurls with a preview in the chat, and whoever taps it sees the pour schedule, grind, and temperature, then saves and brews it. An attached coffee travels with it, so they can make your exact cup. No BrewSmart? The link opens as a web page. Coffees share the same way, alone or with their recipes. Prefer a picture? Any recipe or brew log becomes a clean, themed card. Coffee Library Keep every coffee you brew: roaster, origin, process, varietals, roast level and roast date, plus your own tasting notes. Attach a coffee to recipes and logged brews, then look back at every cup you made with it. Dial-In Assistant Brewed something off? Mark the taste (sour, bitter, weak, or strong) and BrewSmart recommends exactly what to change next time: grind, dose, ratio, temperature, or time. Apply it with one tap. Brew Journal Log every cup with a rating, tasting notes, grind, water temperature, and the coffee you brewed with. Add brews by hand or straight from the timer, and edit any detail later. Recipe Collection Browse a hand-picked collection of recipes (classics like the 4:6 Method, hot and iced) right from the recipes screen, and save any of them into your app. Apple Watch Brew Coach Start a guided brew from your wrist and follow the pour coach with haptic cues for every pour. No need to touch your phone mid-brew. Real-time sync keeps your watch and iPhone together. Home Screen Widgets Jump straight to your ratio or timer. Lock Screen Live Activity Keep your pour timer and next-pour countdown on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Siri & Shortcuts Ask Siri to calculate your ratio or start a brew timer hands-free. Recipe Management Save your favorite water, coffee, and ratio combinations, plus grind and temperature, as named recipes. Attach a coffee, load any setup with one tap, then edit, rename, or delete anytime. Grams or Ounces, °C or °F Switch weight between grams and ounces and temperature between °C and °F, across the app, widgets, and Apple Watch. Clean & Focused No ads. No subscriptions. Light and dark mode. Optimized for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Whether you're calibrating your V60, dialing in espresso, or just making a better cup every morning, BrewSmart takes you from ratio to perfect brew, and remembers what worked.

Screenshots

Beer Lab4 screens
BrewSmart4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Beer Lab at none against BrewSmart's 3. Beer Lab also leads on ratings volume (8 vs 2) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 26.0). BrewSmart's advantage is update cadence (every 5 days vs every 9 months). On price, rating, ads and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. BrewSmart sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Beer Lab asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.1 for Beer Lab against 4.0 for BrewSmart. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 2 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Beer Lab ships an update every 9 months, BrewSmart every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Beer Lab versus BrewSmart: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBeer LabBrewSmart
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.1 (8 ratings) — better4.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 9 monthsEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS13.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size19 MB20 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperTim HarrisonKEN TOMINAGA

Customer experience

Beer Lab

All ratings7 ratings
Positive71.4%
Neutral14.3%
Negative14.3%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral50.0%
Negative0.0%

BrewSmart

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral50.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Beer Lab

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

BrewSmart

One-time3
  • Small Tip$1.99
  • Medium Tip$4.99
  • Large Tip$9.99

Questions

Is Beer Lab free?
Beer Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is BrewSmart free?
BrewSmart is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Beer Lab or BrewSmart?
Beer Lab is rated higher. Beer Lab averages 4.1 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while BrewSmart averages 4.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Beer Lab or BrewSmart have ads?
Neither Beer Lab nor BrewSmart shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Beer Lab or BrewSmart?
Beer Lab ships an update every 9 months, and BrewSmart every 5 days. Most recently, Beer Lab was updated on November 2, 2026 and BrewSmart on October 30, 2026.

Other comparisons