Pubs in AI

For those that don't know, my day job is as a Product Manager in the world of academic publishing. As with any other software based industry, artificial intelligence is becoming part and parcel of the work we do, so I spend a decent amount of time playing with various tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and DALL-E.

I had been messing about with Bing's DALL-E powered Image Creator for a few hours when I hit upon the idea of using it and ChatGPT in tandem, basically having ChatGPT to summarise a body of text into a prompt of fewer than 50 words to enter into Image Creator.

I decided to take the text of my post back in August describing my dream pub, and initially ChatGPT gave me the following prompt:

Imagine a North Atlantic dream pub with church-like simplicity, perched by the ocean. Picture a cozy interior featuring a great hall structure, discrete spaces, and a roaring fireplace. Capture the North Atlantic ambiance with clouds, sea bird cries, and the scent of the ocean. Envision a community-friendly space, welcoming children responsibly, with a wall of books and a local-focused drink and food selection. Embrace the comfort, camaraderie, and North Atlantic charm of this dream pub.

Image Creator then generated 4 images based on the prompt, of which this one I felt was closest to the prompt.

My initial thought with this particular image was that the church was too ornate for what I was thinking off when I described the simple Calvinist architecture of many a North Atlantic church, so I asked ChatGPT to refine the prompt further, resulting in:

Imagine a serene North Atlantic dream pub, its simple coastal church design nestled by the ocean. Picture a warm interior with a great hall layout, inviting spaces, and a crackling fireplace. Feel the North Atlantic ambiance with clouds, sea bird sounds, and the scent of the ocean. Visualize a welcoming community space, children embraced responsibly, featuring books, local drinks, and hearty food. Sense the comfort, camaraderie, and pure charm of this dream pub.

The best of the resulting images was this one, and it was definitely closer.

I still felt that the building was too grand, and too obviously a church, so I asked ChatGPT to target the kind of very simple churches you see in rural Iceland.

Envision a serene North Atlantic dream pub, mirroring the simplicity of Hellnar, Iceland's church. By the ocean, it offers a humble layout with cozy spaces, a crackling fireplace, and the North Atlantic's natural charm. A warm community space welcomes all, featuring books, local drinks, and hearty food. Embrace the comfort and camaraderie of this unpretentious dream pub.

Finally I felt as though the best image of the 4 provided got to the heart of the kind of pub I had in mind when I wrote my post.

I shared this image on several of my socials, and the reaction has been mostly positive, that this kind of pub would appeal to people that follow me.

Not wanting to rest on my laurels, I decided I would see if AI could give me an accurate image of a real pub I have described in a post, starting with a post from my last trip to Scotland in 2019, when I had a night out with Mrs V in the public bar of the Station Hotel in Alness. The text based prompt that ChatGPT spat out was:

Generate a nostalgic image of a traditional Scottish pub: teal blue doors, worn wooden interior, patrons enjoying Tennent's lager. Capture the lively atmosphere, groups of working men, and the couple at the bar. Emphasize the charm, gaming machine, and the essence of camaraderie in this Highland pub scene.

Bing's closest response was this.

Whilst not an absolute match, if you have spent any time drinking in a Highland hotel's public bar, you will definitely recognise the scene, and it actually makes me feel nostalgic for home.

With so many pubs visited over the years, I think that this kind of fun will be something I do pretty often. and see how the technology, and my ability to create prompts improves.

Computerised Craft

Being the second Tuesday of the month, last night was the monthly meeting of the homebrew club I go to. One unscheduled presentation was a description of one of our member's trip to New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado. The facility really looks impressive, lots of shiny stainless steel and so on and so forth, but it got me thinking, in particular it got me thinking about the nature of "craft" brewing.

Something you will quite often hear amongst a certain section of the beer geek world is that one of the differences between "craft" beer and "macro" beer is that it is made by people not machines. If that is a defining characteristic of "craft" beer then I struggle to understand how a brewery like New Belgium can be considered "craft". As a quick disclaimer here, I am not picking on New Belgium in any way, shape or form, it was just that the pictures I saw last night were from there. Particularly impressive were the kettles, made in Germany by Krones, under the Steinecker brand, they are the latest in boiling technology.

When Devils Backbone built their new enlarged brewing facility they had their brewhouse custom built in Germany and talking to the brewer there I learnt that it was the very latest in brewing kit. Included in the brewhouse were hop dosers, which you fill with the hops and at pre-determined times in the boil they get dumped in. All of this controlled, as was the kit at New Belgium, by computer, or to put it another way, it is an entirely automated process.

Personally I have absolutely no problem with entirely automated brewing systems. They, regardless of scale, are not a determiner in whether or not I will like the beer being produced, for example I am occasionally partial to some Michelob AmberBock. One thing though is clear to me, we are getting to the stage in the development of the non-BMC brewing industry where the economies of scale and technology that once were the sole domain of the big boys are available to the bigger "craft" breweries.

At the moment it seems pretty much every regional brewery in the States is expanding, investing in new equipment and extra fermentation space or introducing the latest brewing equipment to replace their beat up boilers. Of course this recycling of brewing equipment allows start up breweries to get off the ground, and there are at least 2 more coming to Charlottesville in the near future. One thing though is evident, with the leading non-BMC breweries adopting similar technology and processes as the likes of Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors, the term "craft brewery" is becoming an anachronism at the very highest levels of the industry.

In my own head I think of Sierra Nevada, Samuel Adams, New Belgium and other large companies with plans for multiple brewing facilities as "mini-macros", and while I am not interested in prescribing a given moniker for these companies I think some honesty on the part of the "craft" beer drinking community would not go amiss. Once brewing companies get to a certain size, they can and should adopt the latest technologies and practices, it is how industries evolve. The key will always be what is in the glass, not the equipment the beer was made with.