Million Dollar Idea: The Beer Stock Ticker

I recently took a trip out to the bowels of Columbia to check out Frisco Taphouse and Brewery (6695 Dobbin Rd., Columbia), where their beer list is not – as most places – in the form of a printed menu (which would cost very little), but rather a huge and presumably expensive flat panel display, listing their selection with ABV values alongside the name. It reminded me of an airport departure board rather than a menu, but a few days later I happened to be sitting in a certain recently sold bar/restaurant with a certain bar owner and the awesome idea was born: Enhance the beer menu by making it a STOCK TICKER!

Follow me on this here: Every keg is placed on a scale, which monitors the weight of the keg – in essence, the inventory – as glasses of beer are being poured. As every keg has their own measuring device, the whole lot of them are plugged into some little computer, which in turn monitors each beer and is assigned a BEER TICKER. As the inventory of each beer goes down, the price goes up a little. As other beers that haven’t been purchased in a while or have excess inventory are out-consumed by other beers, their prices go down. The whole dynamic is fed into an LED banner complete with little red and green arrows to indicate price movements. It’s genius.

As more and more schlubs drink Miller Lite, the price of Sierra Nevada comes down – you wait patiently by the bar monitoring the situation until your strike price is reached and shout BUY BUY BUY!!! I NEED THREE SIERRA NEVADAS!!!! SELL NATTY BOH! SELL NATTY BOH!!

Million dollar idea.

UPDATE: Fortunately/unfortuantely, this idea has been done already out in Kalamazoo, thanks to commenter Andy for the tip. Now we just have to bring it to Baltimore! Get on it!