When Beck's, a storied German brewery founded in the city of Bremen in 1873, celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2023 it decided to bring in a new brewmaster to mark the occasion: ChatGPT, an artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot. The company asked it to whip up a recipe using only hops, yeast, water, and malt. The result was "Beck's Autonomous", a lager with a subtle sweetness, a hoppy texture, and quite a head. One Daily Mail reporter considered it better than the brewery's standard lager.

1873 年，德国老牌啤酒厂贝克啤酒（Beck’s）在不来梅市诞生。 2023 年，为庆祝品牌成立 150 周年，该酒厂决定聘请一位 “新酿酒大师” 来纪念这一时刻 —— 它便是人工智能聊天机器人 ChatGPT。 该公司要求 ChatGPT 仅使用啤酒花、酵母、水和麦芽这四种原料设计一款配方， 最终酿造出的 “贝克自主酿造” 拉格啤酒，口感略带甘甜，蕴含啤酒花风味，且泡沫丰富。 《每日邮报》的一位记者甚至认为，这款啤酒比该酒厂的经典拉格啤酒更出色。

Beer and AI may seem an unlikely pairing, but Beck's is far from the only brand to have asked for input from the technology. Atwater Brewery, an American firm, introduced an AI-designed citrusy India pale ale (IPA) in 2023 and last year St Austell Brewery in Britain used AI to create a tropical IPA dubbed "Hand Brewed by Robots". In March Coedo Brewery in Japan asked an AI model to analyse the preferences of people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, and then developed four craft beers, one for each age range. In general the response from customers, brewers say, has been overwhelmingly positive.

啤酒与人工智能看似是不太可能的组合，但贝克啤酒绝非首个借助这项技术的品牌。 美国的阿特沃特啤酒厂（Atwater Brewery）于 2023 年推出了一款由人工智能设计的柑橘风味印度淡色艾尔啤酒（IPA）； 去年英国圣奥斯特尔啤酒厂利用人工智能创建了一款名为“机器人手工酿造”的热带IPA。 2024 年 3 月，日本的小布施啤酒厂（Coedo Brewery）让人工智能模型分析 20 岁、30 岁、40 岁和 50 岁四个年龄段人群的口味偏好， 随后针对每个年龄段分别研发了一款精酿啤酒。 酿酒商们表示，总体而言，消费者对这些 AI 酿造啤酒的反馈极为积极。

"It gives us access to new recipes that we didn't think about before," says Prinz Pinakatt, boss of the beer business for Tilray Brands, Atwater's New York-based parent company. Machine-learning tools can parse the minutiae of complex flavours, analyse the ingredients and equipment that an individual brewery has available, and then concoct new recipes while tweaking sweetness, acidity, hop level and other attributes to ensure the end product appeals to discerning customers.

“人工智能让我们接触到了以前从未想到过的新配方，” 蒂雷品牌啤酒业务负责人普林茨・皮纳卡特表示， 蒂雷品牌是阿特沃特啤酒厂的母公司，总部位于纽约。 他指出，机器学习工具能够解析复杂风味的细微差别，分析特定酒厂现有的原料和设备，进而设计出新配方； 同时，还能调整甜度、酸度、啤酒花用量等属性，确保最终产品能满足挑剔消费者的需求。

Beau Warren, who opened the Species X Beer Project brewery in America in 2021, knows this firsthand. In 2022 he started training AI models on a number of parameters—his proprietary recipes, different types of yeast, water acidity, various hops, the ingredients in the brewery cellar, the typical makeup of lagers, stouts and other beers—and, by 2024, began using it to guide the brewing process. In one instance, after being asked to make a new lager, the bot suggested mixing Maris Otter malt, usually found in stouts, with Belgian candi syrup. "I would never have thought of doing that in a lager, ever," he says. "We brewed it anyway, and I thought it was one of the best lagers I've ever made." His customers apparently thought the same: Mr Warren says patrons usually rated the AI-crafted beers better than any of the beers thought up by he and his fellow brewers. (That said, the AI beers at Species X are no more: the brewery closed down last autumn owing to financial difficulties.)

博・沃伦（Beau Warren）对此有着亲身体会。2021 年，他在美国创办了 “物种 X 啤酒计划（Species X Beer Project）” 酒厂。 2022 年起，他开始让人工智能模型学习一系列参数 —— 包括他的独家配方、不同类型的酵母、水的酸度、各类啤酒花、 酒厂酒窖中的原料，以及拉格、世涛等不同啤酒品类的典型成分构成。到 2024 年，他开始借助该模型指导酿造过程。 有一次，在要求模型设计一款新拉格啤酒时，它建议将通常用于世涛啤酒的马里斯奥特麦芽与比利时糖果糖浆混合使用。 “我从来没想过要在拉格啤酒里这么搭配，” 沃伦说。 “无论如何，我们还是按这个配方酿了，结果发现这是我酿过的最好喝的拉格啤酒之一。“显然，消费者也有同感： 沃伦先生说，顾客对人工智能酿造啤酒的评分，通常高于他和其他酿酒师自主研发的任何一款啤酒。 （不过，“物种 X” 酒厂的 AI 啤酒现已停产 —— 该酒厂去年秋天因财务问题倒闭。）

Scientists are also intrigued about what bots might tell them about the chemistry of beer. In 2024 researchers from KU Leuven, a university in Belgium, analysed the chemical makeup of 250 Belgian beers, including lagers, blonds and West Flanders ales. They then trained machine-learning algorithms to model the effects of adding or subtracting different aroma compounds, such as glycerol and lactic acid, on the taste. "The models we develop help us to understand the complex relationship between the chemistry of a beer, its taste, and how consumers will like it," says Kevin Verstrepen, a bioscience engineer who led the research team.

科学家们也对人工智能能为啤酒化学研究带来的启发颇感兴趣。 2024 年，比利时鲁汶大学（KU Leuven）的研究人员分析了 250 款比利时啤酒的化学成分，涵盖拉格、金色艾尔、西佛兰德艾尔等品类。 随后，他们训练机器学习算法，模拟添加或减少甘油、乳酸等不同香气化合物对啤酒口感产生的影响。 “我们开发的模型有助于理解啤酒化学成分、口感以及消费者喜好之间的复杂关系，“ 该研究团队的负责人、生物科学工程师凯文・弗斯特雷彭表示。

Of course, it will take more than a chatbot to replace a human brewer. Ingredients must be poured, brew kettles must be tended and the beers must be tasted—whether they were made totally by human hands, or brewed, at least in part, by robots. "Yes, AI will become more and more part of the brewing process, but the brewing itself, the craft, is still the emphasis," says Mr Pinakatt. "It will be very difficult to have machines make our beers."

当然，要取代人类酿酒师，仅靠一个聊天机器人远远不够。 原料需要人工投放，酿造 kettle（糖化锅）需要专人看管，啤酒也需要人工品鉴 —— 无论这些啤酒是完全由人工酿造，还是至少部分由机器人参与酿造。 诚然，人工智能将在酿造过程中占据越来越重要的地位，但酿造本身，也就是这项手艺，依然是核心，” 皮纳卡特说， “要让机器完全替代我们酿造啤酒，难度极大。”