Global stereotypes usually claim that Finns only care about vodka, but this isn’t entirely true; Finland has a very evolved culture in beer drinking. That’s why an app that let’s you get hints for beers and also shows you where your friends are hanging out and what they’re drinking has solid potential to grow across the country.
Pint Please is the name of the application launched today in Finland where users can discover new beers, track their locations, give ratings and get/hand out recommendations on what beers to enjoy and where. Juha Karppinen, one of the co-founders and an amateur beer enthusiast himself, told us the idea came when he frequented Finnish pubs with friends and ended up forgetting the names of the labels he had enjoyed the most.
Benefits of the app also include discounts in several pubs who are in co-operation with Pint Please. In Helsinki, all the “kalaravintolat”, which is a chain of pubs named after traditional Finnish fishes, are among the Pint Please VIP pubs, whereas in Oulu there is Leskinen and Kauppuri 5. More pubs are being included all over the country, but for now the focus is on Helsinki, Oulu and Turku.
Beer drinking might be popular in Finland, but it would be a sad joke to say it’s even comparable with the UK, which has more than 55 000 pubs where an app like Pint Please could fish plenty of users from. That’s why Pint Please’s next target is a Hastings -type Nordic invasion of UK pubs. Several pre-deals made with UK breweries are sure to come in handy once the launch takes place.
Pint Please faces some competition from the strong American microbrew (app) industry, which includes Untappd and other apps attempting to do similar things.
The team behind the app consists of four founders who were recently joined by one investor. Karppinen says further investments will come into play when the time requires it when asked if he had anything to add, Karppinen punctually finalized by saying: “Our aim is to become the world’s best beer application”
Good aim indeed.
