BeerSmith vs. Promash

I am looking to purchase some brewing software–I prefer to run on a Mac but have a PC available as well so I could utilize any platform.

Anyone have specific likes/dislikes related to Promash or BeerSmith (or others)? Any recommendations?

I love Beersmith. Me and him are good buddies and have brewed lots of beers together. I’ve never really met that promash guy though.

+1 for Beersmith. I haven’t used promash but I have been very happy with Beersmith on my Mac.

I tried to use Promash and I thought it sucked royally, extremely difficult and annoying to use and looked like it came straight from 1992. I used Beersmith 1.4 and really liked that, it was easy to use and had some nice functionally. I upgraded to 2.0 recently and although I’m not 100% convinced it was worth the money to do so, it’s still a nice program with a ton of features that are very customizable.

I’m on a Mac also.
I’ve tried all of the various brew softwares, on both both MacOS and Windows .
I also prefer MacOS.

For my money, the best brewing software (especially on a Macintosh) is BeerAlchemy. Its only $30, it is accurate, customizable, has the most sensible and intuitive user interface, and it is Mac native.
You can download a demo version for free to poke around on before you buy. Most of the other brewing softwares are available as demos, so you can try them to compare and then decide for yourself.
That’s what I did and BeerAlchemy won, hands down. I can’t recommend it enough.

(Promash, by the way, can run on a Mac without problems …and without Windoze… if you have Crossover) installed).

[quote=“The Professor”]I’m on a Mac also.
I’ve tried all of the various brew softwares, on both both MacOS and Windows .
I also prefer MacOS.

For my money, the best brewing software (especially on a Macintosh) is BeerAlchemy. Its only $30, it is accurate, customizable, has the most sensible and intuitive user interface, and it is Mac native.
You can download a demo version for free to poke around on before you buy. Most of the other brewing softwares are available as demos, so you can try them to compare and then decide for yourself.
That’s what I did and BeerAlchemy won, hands down. I can’t recommend it enough.

(Promash, by the way, can run on a Mac without problems …and without Windoze… if you have Crossover) installed).[/quote]

BeerAlchemy rules. Beersmith looks very clunky on a mac (because it’s windows software).

For me the choice between Beersmith and Promash was easy when I saw this on the Promash website: “For Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, Win 2000 and Win XP.”

I wanted an app that’s still in the active phase of its development lifecycle.

I like Beersmoth a lot. Definitely still in development. They’ve just implemented cloud functionality, that allows you to store your recipes on on the web, access other people’s recipes (if they elect to share), etc… There is a cost to store >10 recipes I believe, though.

The “compatible with Mac using Virtual PC” bit under it inspires even less confidence.

The revision history says the last time a new version came out was March 2003.

[quote=“Vaughn_S”][quote=“The Professor”]I’m on a Mac also.
I’ve tried all of the various brew softwares, on both both MacOS and Windows .
I also prefer MacOS.

For my money, the best brewing software (especially on a Macintosh) is BeerAlchemy. Its only $30, it is accurate, customizable, has the most sensible and intuitive user interface, and it is Mac native.
You can download a demo version for free to poke around on before you buy. Most of the other brewing softwares are available as demos, so you can try them to compare and then decide for yourself.
That’s what I did and BeerAlchemy won, hands down. I can’t recommend it enough.

(Promash, by the way, can run on a Mac without problems …and without Windoze… if you have Crossover) installed).[/quote]

BeerAlchemy rules. Beersmith looks very clunky on a mac (because it’s windows software).[/quote]

Thanks for the recommendation Prof. I was about to buy beersmith, but tried the demo version of BeerAlchemy and it looks pretty nice. I haven’t messed with it much yet though.

I really like BeerSmith, which I have for mac. I will agree that the interface is a little to be desired. But I talked to Brad at AHA Conference last week and he working to clean it up over the next year. He is also in the process of developing an iPhone and iPad app, which should be out by the end of the year or early next. Should be handy, since I would love to use my iPad when I brew and take advantage of the cloud function.