NIGHTLIFE

Atwater Brewery unveils new craft beer brewed using artificial intelligence

Brian Manzullo
Detroit Free Press

Robots making craft beer? We might not be too far off from that; they're already opening doors and doing backflips.

For now, though, the release of chatbots such as ChatGPT have opened the possibility of generating a full-blown homebrew recipes with a simple prompt, and that's exactly what Detroit-based Atwater Brewery did to formulate its next beer release.

Artificial Intelligence IPA (6.55% ABV), an IPA brewed using a recipe from the ChatGPT chatbot.

Artificial Intelligence IPA — a 6.55% alcohol-by-volume IPA brewed with a blend of Centennial, Citra and Amarillo hops — is a first-of-its-kind brew, using a recipe fully generated using AI, though later brewed by a human (for now). Joe Platt, quality assurance manager at Atwater, said he used ChatGPT to come up with the beer.

"I asked it to write me an IPA recipe, and it gave me a home brew scale recipe," he said, "so then, I asked it to scale the recipe to 20 BBLs to fit our brew system, which it was able to do.”

ChatGPT, a text-generating chatbot launched last November by OpenAI, quickly made waves across the internet because of its ability to deliver information, thoroughly answer questions and even generate song lyrics, essays, recipes, tips and more in just a matter seconds, a power never before seen from AI.

Given Platt's experience, it also can generate beer recipes — and scale them.

More:Nonalcoholic craft beer is taking off in Michigan. But is it any good?

"AI technology has the potential to impact and revolutionize many industries including the brewing industry in the future," Platt said in a released statement, adding that Atwater has "more ideas and new beers" coming in the future.

To celebrate the release, Atwater will charge $2.001 per pint Thursday as an homage to the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." It'll be available at Atwater's Detroit location (237 Jos. Campau), as well as its Grosse Pointe Park (1175 Lakepointe St.) and Grand Rapids (201 Michigan St. NW) locations.

Atwater Brewery was founded in 1997, opening in Detroit's Rivertown district, and has since become Detroit's largest brewery. It was sold to Molson Coors in 2020.

Mark Rieth, who originally purchased the brewery outright in 2005, stepped down as president in late 2021 (he has since launched FÜL Beverage, a line of nonalcoholic drinks). Molson Coors tapped Katy McBrady, a Central Michigan University graduate with robust leadership experience in the California beer scene, as its next president in spring 2022.