Beer Enthusiasm
A few moments ago I noticed my parents’ wine fridge and that got me to thinking more about this website and its intent. Wine tasting is subjective, and over time one would buy a variety of wines, developing their taste palette until finally settling upon what could be described as their choice selections. The exciting part is that once you discover your favorite wine, there is still so much more to be explored. The same is true about my adventures in beer. My first beer was a Bud Lite 40. Needless to say, I was turned off from beer. I was sure this is what everyone had been drinking and I wanted no part in it, that is to say, until I went to England. Once I arrived on the British scene I bought my first pint, a porter. From this point forward, I was in love. I knew nothing about beer other than Miller was awful and all I wanted was to find more and better dark beers. At the time I knew nothing about the differences between porters and stouts. Today I am doing the best I can to learn the different styles of beer and hopefully these efforts will push the development of this website.
This post contains many topics which will all become their own posts at some point, in more detail with further investigation.
I just checked out brew52.com, a Minnesota website encouraging users to taste a different Minnesota beer each week for a year. Brilliant concept. Their interface is straightforward, with the weekly beer’s information dominating the front page, along with user reviews. I want this for our website. A weekly suggestion, provided by users, brewmasters, politicians, whoever. Front page content that everyone can enjoy. Yet I want to offer so much more to the beer enthusiast public, and this is where I get to the meat of my post today. Features. What do we think is important in offering to the public, what is too much, and how do we keep it tightly integrated?
Last.fm has launched a beta version of their new website. Its abilities to help me discover new music thrill me to no end. The site is essentially becoming facebook, but with a focus on offering music contact instead of communication between users. Users of the site have the option to create a profile. This is a typical feature of any web 2.0 website, in that a person creates a username and profile page to inform other users of their musical interests. Each profile page includes all recently listened to music, their recent comments on any song they cared to write about, as well as other users who have similar musical taste. It provides a nice homepage for users as they can take a look at their own activity and music recommendations and venture out to find other people like themselves, to further explore music they may like. I realize this rambles a bit, but I want to show how social content allows people to interact with others with similar tendencies and in the end, hopefully find that perfect song, beer, etc.
Come with me on a journey as I navigate our “fantasy” site through the use of example text.
All visitors are welcomed by a large post regarding the week’s chosen beer, a New England porter suggested by Flat Earth’s brewmaster. There is a short review and a prominent rating for the beer. Visitors can click on the beer to learn more about it, find other users who enjoy it, where it can be purchased, and what other beers are like it. Each and every beer has its own profile. The beer’s profile includes an average score from user reviews, links to information about the brewery that created it, information about the beer style, specs, tasting tags, and similar beers. There is an option at the bottom of the profile for users to review the beer, or to add it to their own profile’s “beer cooler”, a personal shopping list of beers the user has purchased in the past or may want in the future. The “beer cooler” works like a Netflix queue, as it is linked to a personal profile and is accessible at any point on the website.
Each beer has a plethora of information connected with it, and almost all of this info is dependent on users. If I bought a Flensburger Dunkel at Blue Max in Burnsville for $1.49, I would have the option to leave this information in the review. This is not something that I foresee being included in the review when users read the beer profile. But this collection of information will be used when a user queries if the beer is available in their area. The info could then be presented in a list, or perhaps using Google Maps. The goal is to provide the essential information to any user. Sites like ratebeer and beeradvocate gather tons of information but display it all as well. This creates clutter. Let me search for the info if I want it, but don’t give me everything at once. Brew52 has done well with creating a simple format, sites like last.fm do this too. If I want more information, I have that option to look further.
Criteria for reviews has yet to be determined. There may be different categories to rate in, but whatever it is I want a 5 point scale. The goal of this page is to present beers to users in a simple but informative way. If the scale is on 100 point system, then we lose that simple communication. I don’t know what the difference is between a rating of 87 and 92, but a 4 star rating tells me what I want to know. The average rating may be something like 4.12, but that is better than having 100 people guess whether they want to rate a beer 84 or 89 and then have a screwy rating afterwards. 5 points doesn’t scare people away.
Guest columns concerning different aspects of the beer experience. Pouring, bottle style and design, history of breweries and tours. These are all things I am interested in, but the posts will be relegated to the Beer Genome blog and not reside on the front page. There will be a simple one line of text near the header with the latest post in the blog. Again the focus of the website is to provide users with search abilities, a profile to find recommended beers, and a special weekly/bi-weekly beer for the front page.
The question is, when do all of these features become too much? When is the website too much? It is important to have the social community. That is the point of the website; but what is the calling for it? I love going out and just buying a beer and trying it. Does that make this website pointless? No, I don’t believe so. The website can only further this tasting hobby, but the website benefits as well. If I try a random Hefe Weizen, even though I am a Stout man, I might be able to provide a gateway for someone else to find this Hefe Weizen since they share beer interests with me. It might also be a gateway for myself to try new Hefe Weizens. I definitely see the website promoting regional microbrews. I am heading to Seattle in a few weeks. The website could easily suggest what local brews I will need to try once I arrive in the pacific northwest.
Related Articles:
- BeerVoice.com, a home for your beer reviews
- How We Rate the Beer
- How to participate in #IPAMonday
- Episode 17: Wit on Wit
