Next Glass half full?

Science has largely reduced the act of falling in love to a series of chemical reactions. Now the same thing is about to happen to our love of beer.

Next Glass, a new app-in-progress, promises to play matchmaker between you and potential partners out there in the dating, er, drinking pool, based on a scientific analysis (not just what your friends might say, however well-meaning).

Since mid-September, Its “Beer Census” truck has been traveling the country – including stops last month in Seattle and Portland – to pick up thousands of bottled and canned regional craft beers.

Those are being taken to the company’s North Carolina headquarters for testing with a mass spectrometer to discern the chemical composition of each beer and develop its DNA. When the database is ready, you can tell the app which beers (and wines) you like now, and it will let you know what others you might also enjoy based on comparable flavor compounds.

If that sounds familiar from those music sites that recommend new songs based on your previous preferences, you’re right. The Next Glass website calls itself “kind of like a Pandora for alcohol.”

Interested ? You can sign up to be put on a waiting list to try the app when it’s released for beta testing. (You’ll receive  an email from the Next Glass “happiness coordinator” explaining how you can get even earlier access if you get three more friends to sign up, too. Hey, anyone else remember those old record clubs that worked like that?)

There’s a certain appeal to the approach, even if Next Glass will have its hands full trying to keep up with all the new developments in the beer world if it hopes to stay relevant.

But there’s also something to be said for the thrill of discovery, the sheer satisfaction of taking a risk and having it pay off (or the sometimes painful learning experience that comes when it doesn’t).

Call us a hopeless romantic, Next Glass, but there’s more to the meeting of lips and glass than is dreamt of in your technology.