Clever new beer tool for NYC

Normally I’d bemoan the fact that this new site has no coverage of SF, but BeerMenus already has so much hype going for it that I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they make it out here.

It’s a Google Maps mash-up that allows you to search within NYC for:

• A listing of bars that carry a particular beer
• A list of beers currently being carried by a particular bar
• A list of bars in a particular neighborhood
• A list of upcoming beer events

I was a bit skeptical about this new tool at first because wouldn’t it just be better as an application within the BeerAdvocate site?  Then it could be linked in to their established network, and all of their ratings.  The best example of the redundancy this creates is the Beer Events portion of the Beer Menus site, which is completely redundant to BeerAdvocate’s beer calendar, which has the added functionality of allowing you to RSVP to an event to let your BeerAdvocate friends know you’re coming.

However, I was quickly won over by a few features:

• The mapping functionality is key.  While BeerAdvocate lets you narrow your search by zip code or city, etc., there is no map mash-up, which means that when I’m traveling and want to find a good beer bar I can look up likely candidates on Beer Advocate but have to switch back and forth between their site and Google Maps to figure out which will be easiest for me to get to.
• They have price information.  I’m not sure you can get this information anywhere else, including at many of bars home pages.  While I’m sure a lot of bar owners (especially those in higher end places who charge extra to cover their fixed costs of high-rent locations and a snazzily designed sites) are cringing, this is obviously a great benefit to consumers.  Now we’re armed with information about what beers cost at different places and can decide for ourselves whether a higher priced bar is worth the premium.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this also helps out the brewers and/or distributors.  If they can see what retailers are charging and that the market might bear a higher price than they expected, they might be able to charge a little bit more themselves.  So, all around bad news for bar owners, I guess, unless all this extra information in the hands of consumers means more patrons.
• I prefer the Beer Menus style and layout to Beer Advocate.  This may change as BeerMenus grows and necessarily becomes more complex, but right now it has a very clean user-friendly layout.  BeerAdvocate seems a more cluttered to me, probably due to the side bars, ads, and black background for all but the center pane. 

So, I’ll definitely still use BeerAdvocate for its massive database of beer reviews and probably for beer events as well.  I don’t think Beer Menu’s maps offers much of an advantage over BA’s beer calendar. 

However, this might spell the beginning of the end of BA’s Beer Fly and Beer Menus for me.  I’ll use both for now since each provides something the other doesn’t (BA has reviews, BM has maps, prices, and lists of beers on tap now).  But, if either one can integrate the features of the other, I’ll commit to that one.