Getting started with Fake Beer
How to pour, drink and play: what every button does, the five games, Cheers, and how the free and paid versions compare.
What Fake Beer is
Fake Beer is a drink simulator for iPhone. A photorealistic pint (or a glass of wine, or a flute) fills the screen, the rear camera runs live behind and through the glass so the drink refracts the room you are actually in, and tilting your phone pours and drinks it with real liquid physics. On top of that there are five small skill games, a Cheers feature, and condensation you can wipe with a finger.
It comes in two versions with the same drinks, glasses, games and rendering. Fake Beer is a one-time purchase with no ads. Fake Beer - Virtual Pint is free to download and supported by ads. This guide covers both and says where they differ. It is a novelty: there is no real alcohol involved, and the App Store rating is 17+ because it simulates drinking.
Your first pour
- Open the app and answer the camera prompt. If you decline, everything still works and the glass refracts a built-in room instead of yours.
- Tap through the five welcome cards to Start.
- The glass is already full. Tip the phone up, as though you were drinking from it. Liquid only leaves when the surface actually clears the rim, so a tilt that could not pour in real life will not empty it.
- Tilt it back and the drink sloshes and settles. Shake or jolt the phone and it sloshes, and spills if it clears the rim.
- Tap the Refill button (the bar tap) for a fresh pour, or the drink button to switch drink.
The buttons hide by themselves while you drink and come back when the glass comes down. Tap anywhere on the screen to show or hide them.
The four buttons
- Drink (the glass icon) opens the drink picker, and the pint-glass style toggle.
- Game (the game controller) opens the five games.
- Refill (the bar tap) pours a fresh drink with a fresh head.
- Settings (the sliders) holds misting, picture brightness, upside-down mode, Cheers sensitivity, the bar person and the language.
Drag a finger across the glass to wipe the condensation; the water gathers into a drop that runs down.
Nine drinks and the glasses
Lager, Bitter, Stout, Cider, Lemonade, Milk, Red wine, White wine and Champagne. They are styles of drink, not brands. The pint drinks can be shown in a nonic or a conical glass; the wines have their own bowls and Champagne has a flute. Each behaves differently: Stout holds the steadiest head, Cider and Champagne are fizzier with a fleeting head, and Milk and Lemonade have no head at all. The last drink and glass you used are remembered.
The five games
Every game waits for you to hold the glass upright before it starts, and a red Quit button is in the corner while one is running.
- Don't spill fills the glass to the brim and times how long you can carry it before a drop goes over.
- Split the drinks is one unbroken gulp to exactly half a glass. The level is hidden while you drink.
- Three levels asks for three gulps in a row off one pour, leaving 75, then 50, then 25 percent.
- Custom split lets you set your own target from 10 to 90 percent.
- Perfect pour (in beta) fills a nearly empty glass from a stream you steer by turning the phone, aiming for a proper head. It is not offered for wine or Champagne.
Land within 5 percent of a mark and it is "Nailed it!". Results can be shared as a picture. Scores are not saved and there is no leaderboard.
Cheers
Knock your phone against a real glass or a friend's phone and the beer jolts, the phone buzzes and a toast appears. Nothing is sent anywhere - your phone just feels its own knock - so the other phone does not need the app. Set how sensitive it is in Settings under Cheers (Off, Low, Medium or High).
In the paid app you can switch Cheers style to Video and choose from 76 short clips of a bar person raising a pint in 15 languages, with sound, either random or picked. The free app shows the picture version, which is silent. The bar people are AI-generated pictures and do not show a real person.
The camera
The camera image is drawn on screen and released: nothing is recorded or saved, and the app's own code never sends it anywhere. In a dark room there is little to refract, so raise Brightness in Settings under Picture. The only thing you can share is a finished-game picture made from the bar-person art, and only if you choose to.
Free and paid, side by side
- Same in both: all nine drinks, both pint glass shapes, all five games, share cards, condensation, upside-down mode and the 27 menu languages.
- Paid app only: Video Cheers, no ads anywhere, and both the Barman and the Barwoman from the start.
- Free app only: ads, with the Barwoman unlocked for a short run of appearances by watching an optional rewarded video.
Questions people ask
Does it record me or my room?
No. The camera image is drawn on screen and released; nothing is recorded or saved, and the app's own code never sends it anywhere. The free version's ad software uses the internet for ads, but it never receives camera frames.
Do I have to allow the camera?
No. If you say no, the glass refracts a built-in room instead and everything else works.
Why won't it pour?
Tip the phone up as if you were drinking. Liquid only leaves when the surface clears the rim, so a small tilt of a half-full glass will not pour. Tap Refill for a fresh one.
Nothing happens when I clink. What should I check?
Knock the phone firmly against a glass or another phone, make sure Cheers is not set to Off in Settings, and raise the sensitivity if needed. It cannot fire while a result screen is showing.
What is the difference between Fake Beer and Fake Beer - Virtual Pint?
The drinks, glasses, games and rendering are identical. The paid app is a one-time purchase with no ads, Video Cheers and both bar people from the start. The free app is supported by ads and shows the picture version of Cheers.
Is it like the old virtual beer apps?
Like them, you tilt the phone and the drink pours and drains. Unlike a picture or video of beer, this one traces light through the glass, so the colour depends on how far light travels through the drink, the head is lit by your room and the glass bends the live camera view.
Which phones does it work on?
iPhones running iOS 17 or later, held in portrait. There is no iPad version. The sharpest rendering is on iPhone 15 Pro and newer; other iPhones use a designed fallback.
Is it about real drinking?
No. It is a novelty simulator with no real alcohol, and the games score how the simulated liquid behaves: carrying a full glass, stopping at a level and pouring a head.