Beer Suggest » What's Brewing...

Lately, I've been brainstorming on some new features to add to the website. It wasn't long before I had two ideas that would be useful to myself, and hopefully to others. The first of the two is an area to be able to find establishments near you that serve/sell good beer. These locations would be categorized by restaurant, bar, home brew store, and beer store. I've got a pretty large collection of these places, but am still in the process of coming up with an easy, intuitive way to display this information. So expect more information on that soon.

The second idea has to do with beer cellaring. About a year ago, I began to cellar some beers as an experiment. It was easy at first when I had one or two in the basement to remember when they were stored. But soon enough the collection got bigger and bigger, and now I've resorted to using a spreadsheet to keep track of the dates they were bought and cellared. So the idea is that there will be a section in your profile where you can store this information, and then be able to access it from anywhere that has an Internet connection. In addition to storing the date and name of the beer you will also be able to set up automatic notifications. If I want to age a beer for a year then drink it, I will be able to set up a notification which will automatically send me an email when the beer has reached the specified age. I haven't started on this feature yet, but it's in the planning stages.

I'm open to suggestions on both of these features. If you have an idea on how to make either more useful or something entirely different, let me know by hitting the discuss/comments link, posting in the forums, or sending me some feedback.

Going in order from your post. :)

I would definitely not mind helping out with setting up a "local finder" in the sense of data. I know a few places around here that are perfect for those looking for something to try, with one restaurant in particular that keeps at least 20 brews ready for their customers. Also I've started finding a few small brewpubs that I need to go give a try.

Cellering I'm just starting as well, sadly I don't have a very cool area to test in but hopfully my room suffices. The beers I have sitting aside to age are: "Fuller's 2008 bottle conditioned Vintage Ale", "Brooklyn Brewery's Black Ops Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels", and "Samuel Adams Imperial Series Imperial Stout".

I'll try to think of anything that might be a good idea (home brewers page for those that brew at home and a list of their beers including localized reviews?) and am still trying to pull people over to the site. :)

Excellent, I've got a good head start in terms of # of places (around 5000 in the US), but the only reviews that I'll have are a handful that I have already written up, so I'll be needing some of them. I'm sure there are plenty of little great pubs and holes in the wall with awesome selections that I won't have at launch, so the more the merrier!

I actually finished up the cellaring part today, but won't be releasing it till early next week. I don't have a huge collection, but enough where it would be useful to have this app, some barley wines, imperial stouts, and tripels. I am fortunate to have a basement that stays around 60-65 degrees year round. As long as you have a dark area that keeps steady temps you should be good.

Thanks for the support and suggestions, I'm working on trying to come up with some unique, useful stuff as well.