In the top floor of the third tower of Media City Bergen, you will find the MCB Media Lab – the artery of the Norwegian Media Cluster and the site of testing, prototyping and hatching of new ideas. The MCB Media Lab is an innovation greenhouse – also that which is a little less serious and somewhat more original.
The Cluster’s core expertise revolves around visualization, broadcast solutions and media technology. At the nexus of a new media industry reality is the development and application of, among other things, Artificial Intelligence. IBM is the chosen technology partner of the Cluster, and this partnership secures access for technology manufacturers to Watson, IBM’s AI platform. This field is essential to players in both the media and other industries, to help them develop, test, and implement new technology to create their own, smart solutions. Artificial Intelligence has a wide range of applications, and beer is probably a slight anomaly compared to what Watson is usually used for.
The Patriot - Media Lab Artificial Intelligence Retro New England Pale Ale.
Upon moving in to Media City Bergen last august, the idea of creating a Media Lab Beer was conceived, but one where new technology would play a central part in creating an excitingly different product. Massive amounts of data about Bergen and its citizens was fed into Watson, who in turn churned out a set of characteristics to describe the archetypical Bergensian. This informal, tongue-in-cheek analysis demonstrated that the Bergensian scores very high on traits like intellect, imagination, openness and creativity, but well below average in modesty – perhaps not surprisingly... According to Watson, a dominant feature of the Bergensian is to challenge authority.
Watson also matched up the characteristics against the beer styles and brands of the world, to find the best possible match for the Bergen temperament. The results lastly given to 7 Fjell Bryggeri to finish the work by creating a recipe where the brewery applied its brewing expertise and to made sure Bergensians put their mark on the beer. 7 Fjell Bryggeri is a local craft brewery combining a fundamental passion for great beer with decades of experience from the industry. Their goal is to produce classic, yet innovative beer that will put Bergen on the international beer map. For the Media Lab, 7 Fjell was the obvious choice.
Media Lab + Intelligent Beer = True.
The brewers used their Bergensian intellect, their imagination, and of course their authority-challenging nature to create a very special and unique product – based on the ingredients suggested by Watson but assembled in an order which dramatically changes the final product. 7 Fjell CEO Jens Eikeset presented the result on the mcb tech .18 conference last week: A hazy, fruity retro single-hop Cascade Pale Ale in a modern New England IPA attire. It’s the Patriot.
Cheers!
The Patriot made the news last month - check out the clip at tv2.no