Archived Blog Entries

I released a few small changes today based on feedback I've received through the website. Most of these you may not notice, as they are small visual changes. One thing that you will notice is that places are now included in the site search. Any search you perform using the box in the upper right hand corner of every page will also include places in the search results. I'm still working on figuring out the best way to include breweries in the places search results. Also it's really not fair to only allow one label for a place. It' not uncommon to have both a bar and a restaurant, as well as many other combinations. Check back soon for updates on this.

Yesterday was a great day. I got much more completed that I thought was possible. So right now I am launching the places section of the website. You can use the places section to write a review of your favorite bar, restaurant, home brew shop, or beer store. You can also use it to get more information, such as hours, and location.

There are currently two ways to find beer places near you. The first way is to browse the places directory. The directory lists all places by country, which you can then drill down to the state and city level. Once you get to the city level it will list all places in a neat table that you can search and sort.

The second way to quickly find places near you is to use the places locator. Here you enter a full or partial address, which can be as ambiguous as a city, or as specific as your home address, choose a mile radius, and select the places you are trying to find. Then simply click on the Find Beer Places button. The results will be displayed below in a table where you can then view and sort the results. You'll get some basic information as well as the distance the place is from the address you entered.

This has been a couple of months in the making, so it feels great to finally get it out there. Let me know what you like, what you don't like, or what else you would like the places section to do. Contact me via the feedback form, or hit the discuss link to talk about it in the forums.

In my spare time I've been putting a lot of effort into finishing off the Beer Places section of the website. Today I've got some great news...it's almost ready! It needs a little polishing and integration, but all of the major components are completed. So this brings up the question of when am I releasing it? That depends on how much work I can get done this weekend. The best estimate I can give you is that it will be released sometime within the next two weeks. If things go very well I might be able to release it this coming Sunday. So check back soon! I'll post an update at the end of the weekend with an exact date, if it's not ready for Sunday.

Have a great weekend and don't forget it's American Craft Beer Week, so support your local brewery!

Beer Suggest is now on twitter. I'll be posting small updates on the progress of new features there, as well as sharing screen shots of said features. All major announcements will still be posted here on the site as well as a posting a snippet on twitter with a link.

I recently posted some more screen shots of the new "beer places" app on twitter, so feel free to head over there and start following Beer Suggest! The screenshots can also be found here and here.

I've been slowly working on completing the new Places section of the website. I made some good headway today, so I thought I'd post a screenshot and explain a few of the features that will be included when it's completed. The screenshot to the right shows the details page of a particular beer store. You'll notice it looks similar to the brewery details page. Registered users will be able to add, edit, flag, comment, and review places.

In order to find beer places near you, there will be 3 paths one can follow. You will be able to browse a directory, perform a search based on a full or partial address, or do an advanced search. Currently the search will find beer bars, beer stores, home brew stores, and restaurants. Breweries will most likely also be included before I'm done.

I've still got a lot of work to do, so I don't have a good estimate for when this new feature will be released. In the meantime click on the image to get a better look and check back here for more updates soon!

Today I released one of the new features I discussed in my last post: The Beer Cellar. As you login, your profile will now have a Cellar tab. Clicking on this tab will list all of the beers you currently have cellared, their cellar date, any notes, and their age. On every beer details page there will be an "Add to Cellar" option which will allow you to specify the cellar date and any additional notes about the beer. You can also setup notifications for any beer in your cellar. On the Cellar page simply click on the Add Notification link for any beer in your cellar. You will be asked for a future date, and any notes. On the date specified you will receive an email with your notes.

I've also updated the about and FAQ pages to reflect the new addition. Next up is the beer locations application which I also discussed in the last post. Expect to hear more information about this in the near future. Enjoy!

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.

It took me roughly 3 1/2 months but I finally have the website organized in such a way that makes it more sane for me to manage. This involved practically rewriting most of the website, but it's going to be worth it in the long run.

During the rewrite I added a few new features. Some I have talked about already, and others I have not, so here is the list of what's new as of today:

• A brand new User Stats interface that allows for sorting/searching and gives you more control over viewing your stats
• An overall more consistent look across the website
• I made it much simpler to add new events
• Site stats have been updated to be easier to read and browse
• Advanced News Search - You can now search by state, title, and article content
• Each news story now lists all breweries mentioned in the article
• Each blog post now links to the corresponding forum post for discussion on site news
• Event pages now have an area map, similar to the brewery pages
• An Updated About page that lists the website features

I spent a lot of time trying to make this release error free, but it's always possible something slipped out. If you encounter a bug, can't locate a page, or something else of that nature use the Feedback page and let me know. To talk more about these updates click the title or the discuss link to head to the forums.

I'm planning on applying updates to the website Friday March 6th, 2009 at 6:00 PM EST. I don't anticipate the updates taking more than 30 minutes. If everything goes smoothly it should actually only take a minute or two. You can read more about what's new in the previous blog post. I'll post a reminder on Friday letting you know when the site will go down for maintenance.

It's been exactly a month since my last post discussing the behind the scenes re-structuring going on and the new feature or two being implemented. I've got the website completely reorganized, but still need another week to make sure everything's working properly. So while I was hoping for a March 1st release it's looking more like the 7th or 8th of March is going to be the release date.

So what does all of this behind the scene stuff do for you? Basically it's going to allow me to roll out new features that much faster. Because of the old structure it was tedious and time consuming to implement and release new features. Now everything is much more organized and streamlined which will help me release these updates to you in a more timely manner.

The following are the things that you will personally notice when the new release rolls out:

• A brand new User Stats interface that allows for sorting/searching and gives you more control over viewing your stats
• An overall more consistent look across the website
• I made it much simpler to add new events
• The site stats have been updated to be easier to read and browse
• A more efficent website

Stay tuned for an offical release date coming soon. In the meantime what would you like to be able to do on the site that you can't currently do? Or what current feature would you like to be expanded or made easier to use? Feel free to send me feedback, add your suggestions in the comments of this blog post, or discuss in the forums.

For the last month or so I've been rewriting and restructuring the website in my free time. There are many reasons for this, but here a few:

• The codebase is a mess, since I was new to the framework when the website started
• A couple features of the website aren't needed and just provide extra overhead
• Some features needed a rewrite because they weren't written right the first time
• Some areas, like the profile, didn't have a consistent look and feel

Most of the above issues you would not have noticed because it's all code maintenance. In addition to making the website easier for myself to manage, I'm also adding a few new features. The most prominent one is a reimagining of the user stats. I wanted to make it simpler to view your stats, and to search through them. Therefore all of the stats will be in a table like format with the ability to sort by any of the header columns. Also you will be able to search through any of your stats. It's much easier this way to view all of your ratings, reviews, etc. It's pretty slick looking, and should satisfy a lot of users who have been asking for something like this.

Don't get too excited, though. I still have atleast a month until I am finished reworking the website. At that time I'll release the new features. But in the meantime you can check out the screenshot above for a sneak preview. Click on the image to view a larger version.

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy, fruitful, healthy, and productive new year! I have a lot of exciting things planned for the new year, so stay tuned! Don't forget to check out the new forums.

As of this moment the Beer Suggest forums have launched. I'll be rolling out more enhancements to the forum early in 2009, but for now they should have everything you need. Every thread has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to, or you can choose to subscribe via email. There are a couple of good discussions going on right now, so get in there and join in!

In the little free time I've had during this busy end of the year, I've decided this week I'll be releasing the forums. I wanted to get more features implemented but they will come in due time. When the forums are released they will have all of the basic features, and as time goes on I'll be incrementally adding new features. There is a lot of fun stuff to talk about during the holidays and this season in general, when it comes to beer. I don't have an exact date, but it will be released later this week. The next post will be the "Welcome to the forums" announcement.

Stay tuned!

It's a brand new month so it's time for some updates on the forums. I've been extremely busy at work, so I didn't get as far as planned. That being said, the basic functionality is there. You can add new threads, make posts, subscribe to new forums, and check out the latest posts. I want to get a few statistics implemented, for example being able to view all of your posts, or a friends, and possibly integrating the forum posts into the friend feed on your profile page. In lieu of the actual forums I have a screenshot to hold you over just a little bit longer. Click on the image for a full size image.

I'll have more time to work on the few remaining features in the next week or two.