Identify any US beer from the can
Yes, there is an app that identifies a beer by scanning the can. Hopgrail reads the barcode or the label and matches it against the federal label register: every beer legally sold in the United States has its label on file with the TTB before it ships. A barcode is checked against 1,819 UPCs linked to those filings; a label photo is read and matched against 44,114 labels filed since December 17, 2016. Open the scanner →
Counts are read live from the register · newest filing on file September 11, 2026 · 48,131 label images · 1,155 brewery barcode prefixes
How the match works
The camera decodes the UPC or EAN and looks it up among 1,819 codes the register has tied to specific filings, most of them read off the filed label art itself. A hit opens the beer's filing. If only the brewery's barcode prefix is known (1,155 prefixes on file), you get that brewery's filings to pick from.
When the barcode misses, or there isn't one, the scanner reads the can: brand, beer name, style and ABV as printed. It ranks the filings whose records match and shows each one's filed artwork beside your photo. You confirm the match; the scanner never picks for you. Label reads need a free account.
If neither finds the beer, the answer is that the register hasn't seen it. Nothing is invented and no near-miss is dressed up as a hit. Filings post daily, so a can filed this week may match tomorrow.
Why the label matters
A barcode lookup only works when someone already wrote the row. Taproom-only cans, one-off collaborations and small regional runs rarely have a recorded UPC, which is why scanning them in most beer apps returns nothing. The federal label filing is different: it exists for every US beer, filed by the brewery, before the first can is sold. Matching against that register is what lets a can with no barcode still identify.
Three ways to identify a beer, compared
| Method | What it matches against | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Barcode lookup | A database of codes someone has recorded | Cans with no barcode, or one nobody logged |
| Reverse image search | The same picture appearing on the web | Beers with no photos online; near-identical series cans |
| Federal label register (Hopgrail) | The 44,114 labels every US beer must file with the TTB | Beers whose filing hasn't posted yet, or imports filed under a different system |
What a match gives you
The filing: brewery of record, beer name, style, ABV, the date the label cleared, and the artwork as filed. From the beer's page you can add it to your grails, rate it in your journal, or ask to be told when it lands on a shelf. A verified scan also records the beer's first sighting in the wild for everyone hunting it.
Questions
- Is there an app that identifies a beer by scanning the can?
- Yes. Hopgrail's scanner identifies a US beer from the can two ways: it reads the barcode and matches it against 1,819 UPCs the register has linked to federal label filings, or it reads the label itself and matches what is printed against the 44,114 labels on file with the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) since December 17, 2016. It runs in the browser at hopgrail.com/scan and in the Hopgrail iOS app.
- What if the can has no barcode?
- Taproom cans, small runs and collaborations often carry no barcode, or one that no database has recorded. Hopgrail still identifies them because every beer legally sold in the United States has its label artwork on federal file before it ships. The scanner reads the brand, beer name, style and ABV printed on the can and ranks the filings that match, with the filed artwork shown beside your can so you confirm the match yourself.
- What does a match return?
- The filing itself: the brewery of record, the beer name, the style, the ABV and the date the label cleared, with the label art as filed. From there the beer can be saved to your grail list, rated in your journal, or watched until it reaches a shelf near you.
- What happens when nothing matches?
- The scanner says the register has not seen the beer. It never guesses a name, and a label read never auto-selects a filing; it ranks candidates and you decide. A no-match is an honest answer, not a failure to display something.
- How is this different from Untappd or a reverse image search?
- Untappd matches barcodes and names against entries its users typed, so a beer nobody has logged returns nothing. A reverse image search looks for the same picture on the web. Hopgrail matches against the federal label register, the one place every US beer is guaranteed to appear, so the beer does not have to be popular or online to be identified.