I’m pleased to announce that the long awaited BeerSmith 4 desktop software release is coming this month!
After over 3 years of work and almost 4 months of testing, the BeerSmith 4 desktop release is coming this month. I’ve set a release date of Thursday, 19 March 2026 for the Windows and newer Mac release. Support for Ubuntu Linux and older Mac machines will follow in the weeks after the desktop launch along with a series of updates to the web version to bring matching features online.
BeerSmith 4 Highlights
While I will be publishing a series of short articles and videos in the coming weeks here are some of the main highlights for the BeerSmith 4 Desktop launch:
- Cloud and Local Mode: On startup you can select to use either the cloud or your local drive as the primary storage, though both will be accessible. This gives user’s of BeerSmith web the ability to work explicitly from their cloud based recipes, ingredients and profiles across all machines. However I’ve also preserved the local storage option for many businesses and individuals that don’t want their data stored online.
- Improved Brewing Features: A “Run Checks” button lets you do a quick check of your recipe for possible omissions and errors before brewing. Yeast, water, mash pH, and other brewing models have been updated and improved, and new brewing tools have been added.
- Major Yeast Changes: You can now use liquid volumes or weights to specify yeast quantities, and the yeast models have been completely rewritten to match best professional practices. You can now adjust pitch rate to match your specific recipe, and all of the yeast addons and models have been updated to reflect yeast lab data and recommendations. Dry yeast starters are supported, dry pitch rate in grams/hecto-liter, pitched cells in cells/ml and more.
- Major Water Changes: The water profile tools have been completely revamped and reworked to reflect annhydrous salt additions, updated water chemistry, using pickling lime and MgCl, and estimating water profiles not only in the mash but throughout. Also more options were added for targeting specific additions and phases.
- A Cleaner User Interface: Both the Windows and Mac version now support dark mode, and the entire interface has been redesigned to place the most commonly used functions at your fingertips, and reduce clutter. Many operations were streamlined like adjusting water and pH or creating a New Session which involves archiving your old recipe, bumping the version number and resetting the session data all into one operation.
- Completely Rewritten Backend: The program now runs from a SQL database that is passively backed up as you work instead of the old problematic XML files. This results in dramatically improved data security, reliability and the ability to undo mistakes and retrieve archived or old data. Also it will be separate from BeerSmith 3 so you can use both side-by-side.
- New Inventory and Shopping List: The inventory and shopping list features have been rewritten to make it easier to maintain a shared inventory in the cloud as well as selectively move data from recipes to the shopping list, to inventory and then remove them once the recipe is brewed.
- Improvements Across the Board: Dozens of new tools and features have been added and hundreds of fixes have been added across the platform. A few examples include support for Seltzer recipes, much simpler Mash pH adjustment, proper handling of secondary and tertiary fermentables, new units and much more.
Pricing and Preorder
As with BeerSmith 3, the new BeerSmith 4 will use the same licensing arrangement. You can choose between the subscription options (Gold, Platinum and Pro) starting at $19.95/year which include the web version and major upgrades or you can purchase the non-subscription BeerSmith Basic ($44.95 which does not include the web version or future major version upgrades).
- Existing Gold, Platinum and Pro Level BeerSmith 3 Users: All of the subscription licenses currently include major version upgrades so if you have one of these licenses your existing BeerSmith 3 license will carry over to BeerSmith 4 at no charge. You don’t need to do anything as you will be able to activate BeerSmith 4 with your existing license.
- Existing Basic Level BeerSmith 3 Licenses: As per the terms of your license, the non-subscription BeerSmith 3 Basic license DOES NOT include major version updates so it will not apply to BeerSmith 4. You will have the option of purchasing a separate license for BeerSmith 4 or continuing to use BeerSmith 3. I have also upgraded anyone who purchased a Basic license after 1 July 2025 to version 4 to cover recent buyers. You can check your profile page if you purchased a recent basic license to see if you have been upgraded.
- New Purchases: If you purchase a BeerSmith 3 license at any level starting today you will be able to use BeerSmith 4 when it is launched. All Gold, Platinum and Pro licenses automatically include major version updates, and any Basic level purchases made now will include BeerSmith 4 when released.
I am looking forward to the BeerSmith 4 release and hope you all enjoy trying it out in just a few weeks!
Brad Smith, PhD, BeerSmith LLC
