We Taught an AI to Be a Beer Nerd
We Taught an AI to Be a Beer Nerd
Right, so we've done something a bit daft. Or brilliant. Possibly both.
We've built an AI-powered beer advisor — right here on our website — that chats with you like a knowledgeable mate at the bar, figures out what you like, and recommends beers from our actual live shelves. Not a generic chatbot. Not a "please select from the following options" dropdown. A proper, opinionated, craft-beer-obsessed conversational tool that we're calling The Beer Nerd.
And we built the whole thing in an afternoon.
"Most big retailers don't have anything this good — and we're a bottleshop in Ripponden."
Why did we build it?
Anyone who's walked into INDII knows that half the magic is the conversation. You tell us you usually drink Peroni, and we'll find you a Helles lager that'll change your life. You mention you're buying a gift for someone who "doesn't really drink beer," and we'll find something so approachable they'll be converted by the second can.
That knowledge lives in our heads — and on our shelves. But not everyone can pop in. Plenty of people browse the website at 10pm on a Tuesday when we're closed, stare at 100+ beers, and either buy something safe or give up entirely.
The Beer Nerd fixes that. It's like having one of us in your pocket, any time of day.
How does it actually work?
Under the bonnet 🔧
The clever bit is the security layer. We didn't want our API key sitting exposed in the website code (that would be like leaving the till unlocked). So we built a Cloudflare Worker — a tiny piece of server-side code that sits between your browser and the AI, keeps the key safe, and handles all the requests invisibly.
What can it actually do?
Personalised picks
Recommendations based on your actual taste, not just "most popular"
Live stock only
Only recommends beers that are actually on our shelves right now
Add to cart
One click adds any recommended beer straight to your basket
6-pack discount
Nudges you towards 6 beers to unlock your 10% discount automatically
Gift finder
Tell it you're buying a gift and it adjusts its recommendations accordingly
Yorkshire warmth
Friendly, unpretentious, a touch of northern charm. No beer snobbery here.
Was it hard to build?
Honestly? Less hard than you'd think — and we say that as a bottleshop, not a software company. The tools available today are remarkable. Anthropic's Claude API handles the actual intelligence. Shopify's Liquid templating feeds it live product data. Cloudflare Workers keeps it secure. We wired them together.
The trickiest bit was getting the AI to output its recommendations in a consistent format we could parse into product cards. Once we cracked that, everything else clicked into place.
Total build time: one afternoon, a lot of coffee, and a test pint at the end to celebrate.
"The trickiest bit was getting the AI to output its recommendations in a format we could turn into product cards. Once we cracked that, everything else clicked."
What's next?
This is version one. We've got ideas for where it goes next — connecting it to our Untappd data so it knows what's trending, remembering your preferences between visits, suggesting food pairings for your weekly shop. But for now, it works brilliantly and we're dead chuffed with it.
If you're another small business owner reading this wondering whether AI tools are worth exploring — they absolutely are. You don't need a development team. You need curiosity, a free afternoon, and the right tools.
And if you're a craft beer lover who just wants someone to tell you what to drink — The Beer Nerd is waiting for you.
Try the Beer Nerd 🍺
Tell it what you drink. It'll find you something brilliant.
Chat with the Beer Nerd →