Last week the Brewer's Association unveiled their Calorie and Carbohydrate Calculator and Beer Nutrient Database. These are the basic tools chain restaurants can use to generate the calorie content they need on their menus starting May 5.
We gave the process a shot and found it's tedious at best and an annoyance at worst.
However, because the primary calculators have been released, not everyone will have to go through the tedious process: Our development team has filled in the final pieces of our Calorie Content Generator.
Schedule a consultation to learn more about our Calorie Content Generator.
As we wrote in our previous post, effective May 5th, calorie and nutrient information will be required for alcohol on all on-premises menus “at any chain restaurant or similar retail food establishments with 20 or more locations that have the same business name and offer for sale substantially the same menu items.”
Until last week, how this was to be calculated remained unclear. However, on Monday, March 24th, the Brewers Association unveiled their Calorie and Carbohydrate Calculator and Beer Nutrient Database. These are the basic tools restaurants can use to generate the calorie content they need on their menus.
Here's a screen grab of the calculator:
Even though it seems relatively straightforward, it's not as simple as it looks. It includes navigating to multiple websites, running several calculations, and, all in all, a total of 8 steps to complete.
Below you'll find those 8 steps. Go ahead and give it a run-through if you'd like. (If you're going to try, good luck!)
- Determine the style for the beer you're going to add to your menu.
- Navigate to the Brewers Association's Beer Nutrient Database.
- Locate the beer style for the beer you're going to add to your menu. Click it.
- Note that beer's original gravity and final gravity.
- Navigate away from the BA's calculator to the Scandinavian Beer Calculator. Enter the original gravity and final gravity there.
- Navigate back to the BA's calculator. Enter the results you got from step 5 into the BA calculator.
- Hit “Calculate.”
- Round your numbers according to the rules outlined here.
BeerMenus Solution
In our opinion, that's a lot of rigmarole. Calculating calorie content for your beers is not the best use of your time. You're already ordering and serving the beer, while doing innumerable other things throughout the day.
Because of that, we're putting the final touches on our Calorie Content Generator. In a word, you simply enter the beer you're going to serve and the serving size. The calorie content will automatically generate.
That's right: all you have to do is add your beer to BeerMenus, and the corresponding calorie content will appear everywhere it needs to be. You'll be fully compliant.
Want to learn more? Schedule a consultation to discuss how this solution can work for your business.