BeerMenus.com, where have you been all my life?

A helpful search for my favorite hard-to-find brew.

(Credit: BeerMenus)

BeerMenus.com, I've been dreaming about you at night. And now you've jumped into my world. We're a match made in heaven.

Here's how it works. Much like a boozier version of Menupages, BeerMenus aggregates bars' beer lineups so that you can search for a particular establishment or for a particular beer to find out where it's on tap (or bottled) and for how much. For those of us who prefer their beer to be a bit more esoteric than Bud Lite or even Stella Artois, this is a godsend. I searched for my favorite variety, Allagash White (a delightful Belgian-style white ale brewed in Portland, Maine), and BeerMenus gave me a list of ten establishments where I could find it along with a Google Maps mashup.

For even more hops-and-barley fun, BeerMenus indexes special events at bars as well. That's something that Going, Upcoming, Yelp, and their socially prolific brethren already handle, but it's still a nice feature.

The nifty little site, which just launched Thursday, currently only extends to New York's prolific bar scene, and within that, it still only has about 150 Manhattan bars' menus available. And unfortunately, at the moment I'm across the country in San Francisco so I can't actually do a field test. I'm guessing it's generally accurate, but beer menus do tend to shift around more frequently than food menus do--that's an area where social-networking features like comments and reviews could help.

But really. Think about what could happen if this expanded: frequent travelers could learn where to find their favorite brews in unfamiliar cities, or learn where they can try out a nice pint of a regional favorite. The site also has plenty of room for recommendations, discovery features, and reviews--like a Snooth for beer.

You'd never have to drink a crappy beer again.

[sussexjoe]

Great!

I started "the brew club" at work, and living just out of NYC, this will be a very useful resource! Thanks!

[hexjones]

a similar one to check out

Check out beermapping.com We have much of the country mapped. You can find breweries, brewpub, beer bars, and beer stores. There are also great forums for chatting and beer events, etc.

It would be great if we could combine the two.

[Bryce Mirtle]

Any Specials?

The only thing they need to add are the beers that have "Happy
Hour" pricing & their respective prices. It sounds good to me, I just
wish they would get this going on the West coast!!

[alexandergordon]

Unique and Rad

A great resource -- nowhere to go but up. Definitely need a social networking aspect to keep up with rapidly rotating taps at high volume places like Ginger Man, Hop Devil, Blind Tiger etc.

The best thing is absolutely being able to search by beer, and have a vague idea of pricing. If this takes off maybe it will balance some of the pricing on craft beer, which would be good for breweries' sale and converting more macro drinkers.

If they partner with anyone it should be Beer Advocate, which already has the social aspect ...

[hexjones]

BA

[partner with BeerAdvocate]...or anti-social aspect, depending on your perspective.