App shows if you’ll like that new beer or wine before you’ve tried it

Next Glass offers drinkers a personalized matchmaking score for any beer or wine to let them know if it will suit their tastes.

The craft beer industry is one that's exploded in the past few years, as consumers demand a more diverse drinking range and move to support independent producers. We've already seen Craft Check, the app that lets users scan a bottle to make sure it really is an independent brew. Now Next Glass offers drinkers a personalized matchmaking score for any beer or wine to let them know if it will suit their tastes.

One of the downsides of being adventurous with alcohol is that occasionally you'll pick a bottle of wine that's far too dry, or order an undrinkable beer that tastes of feet. Next Glass aims to put a stop to that, while still enabling drinkers to enjoy trying out new brands. Users start by finding the drinks they like through the app and rating them out of 4 stars. This helps the app build up a taste profile of each user.

Behind the scenes, Next Glass has analyzed the ingredients for a wide range of microbrewery and vineyard products, as well as taste-tested them to determine what qualities they have. When users scan a new bottle, the details are compared to their taste profile and a percentage score indicates how good of a match it is. If it's in the 90s, you know that you're probably going to enjoy it.

The app also lets users share their taste profiles with others through social networks, and if they're inviting more than one person over to drink they can get multiple scores for each bottle they scan to ensure everyone will enjoy it.

Next Glass is available for free on the App Store and Google Play. Could this kind of rating and recommendation system work for other products?