Hopgrail Launches iOS App That Identifies Any US Beer From Its Label, Built on Federal Label Filings

HONOLULU, Hawai'i — September 18, 2026 — Hopgrail, the public register of American beer built from federal label filings, today released its iOS app on the App Store. The app identifies a beer from a photo of the can or bottle, with or without a barcode, by matching the label against the certificate of label approval (COLA) that every US brewer files with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau before a beer ships.

Every beer legally sold in the United States files its label with the TTB first, and the filing is public: the brand, the fanciful name, the class, the producer of record, and the artwork itself. Hopgrail reads the register daily and publishes it as a searchable record. The register now holds 46,000 label filings dating to 2016, covering 35,000 distinct beers, more than 7,500 of the filings cleared so far in 2026.

The filings are one of two sources. Hopgrail also reads the websites of more than 3,100 US breweries, matching the beers on their boards to the filings behind them. Together the database holds more than 83,000 beers, with each one marked by where it came from: a federal filing, a brewery's own site, or a can read by a drinker. The sources are never blended.

"Every beer files first," said Curtis Vaughan, founder of Hopgrail. "The filing is public, it carries the artwork, and it clears weeks before the beer reaches a shelf. We read the register every day so that drinkers, retailers and breweries can see what is coming, and so a can in your hand can be matched to the paperwork behind it."

How the scanner works

A barcode, when the can has one, resolves directly. When it does not, as with most taproom and small-batch releases, the app reads the label and matches the text against the register, then shows the filed artwork beside the drinker's photo so the match can be confirmed by eye. Hopgrail never asserts a match on its own; the filing and the can are shown side by side, and the drinker decides.

For the trade

Every brewery in the register has a page listing its filings as they clear, with the label as filed and the date it was approved. The register also lists newly licensed breweries as their first filings appear, typically before they surface in directories, and publishes a weekly ledger of what cleared. Brewers can link to their own register page as a public record of their filings.

Availability

Hopgrail is free on the App Store for iPhone and on the web at hopgrail.com. No account is required to browse the register or scan a can. Label reads require a free account.

About Hopgrail

Hopgrail is the public register of American beer. Built on the TTB's certificate of label approval records, it reads every US beer label filing the day it clears and publishes the filings, the artwork, the breweries and the newly licensed as a searchable record, on the web and on iOS. Hopgrail is operated by Von Oster Ventures LLC in Honolulu, Hawai'i.