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I was excited when my friend Jonathan Lunardi who runs craftbeerclothing.com (see my review here) and a number of other craft beer-related web ventures told me about his latest start up, BreweryFans.com, so I asked him to tell me a little bit more about the project. What resulted was a very long-winded (I mean that in the best possible sense) interview with Jonathan about the site and what it provides to both beer fans and breweries around the country. Since the outcome of the interview was literally so much information, I’ve decided to break it up into kind of a multi-part series of posts, with each question serving as a different story posted sporadically over the coming weeks. We’ll start with the nitty-gritty, What does BreweryFans.com do for the average person?

Jonathan: Our mission is to better connect craft beer fans with the beer and breweries they love. Now that is a very broad mission and can mean many different things. For this first version of BreweryFans.com, which launched March 1st, we focused development on the following functions:

• The BeerSpotter – an interactive tool for distributors, breweries, retailers, and individuals to post where specific craft beer brands are available. This data is then easily searchable within a large Google Maps interface and within a filterable list on each specific beer page, see example of a SweetWater Brewery Beer here. This data will also be available on the iPhone soon as well. I will mention that since we are just starting out the data is a bit sparse at the moment, but we are constantly adding new beerspots and it is very easy for any craft beer fan to add where they have seen a specific beer by going to the add beerspot page. We are building a community and need everyone’s help to add beerspots!

• Brewery Fan Pages – there are over 2,000 breweries in our database from around the world. Each one of these has their own fan page where we pull in data on their beers, where the brewery is located, the latest twitter talk about that brewery, photo slideshows, videos from Youtube, and a wall for fans to post their favorite beer memories. Wow that is exhausting just typing that! Also, when you join a fan page, we ask you what beers you have tried from that brewery and what you thought of each beer. That information is then sent to the brewer so that new styles can be developed based on their most loyal fans tastes. For the site to be successful, we need people to join brewery fan pages so brewers can get a large pool of taste information to base their brewing decisions on in the future.
• Email Alerts – the next most exciting feature is our email watch dog alerts capability. Since we do not have a ton of beerspots on the site yet, you can get an alert on a specific beer when someone posts a beerspot in the city you live. This is a revolutionary feature and one that we hope a lot of beer fans will use because it has the potential to influence where beers are distributed. For example, we can show a brewery that there are 800 people will email alerts for the Oatmeal Stout of XYZ brewery in Dallas, Texas but there is no distribution there. If a brewery gets a distributor and the beer is availabe in Dallas, Texas an email will be automatically sent to all 800 people letting them know! How awesome is that? The brewery can minimize risk by determining the demand for specific brands based on real data, imagine the possibilities! I have alerts set for 10 beers that I want to find in Washington DC. They may be out there, and if someone posts a beerspot for one, I will know about it right away.
• Other Fun Stuff – there are a ton of other cool things on the site as well such as our daily craft beer quiz question, your craft beer buddies network, and a beer points system for doing activities on the site. We are constantly adding new tools for fans to connect with the beer and breweries they love, so if you have ideas, send them to jon@breweryfans.com

All in all, we love craft beer and the breweries that spend endless hours brewing truly incredible beers. We want to help craft breweries grow and make smarter decisions by connecting them with their most valuable asset, their fans!

Enjoy the website, be sure to register on the site, join your favorite brewery fan pages and tell others to as well! The site is integrated with Facebook Connect so it is very quick to register.

And look for part two of this series coming soon. Cheers.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Avantaggio of Beer ME Maine recently to discuss his new brand of Maine & beer-inspired duds and the brand he is silently but explosively building throughout the state (and beyond). Chris was also kind enough to pass along a “review copy” of one of their shirts and pint glasses so I can tell you first-hand that this stuff rocks! He was also kind enough to pass some savings on to all of you – for a limited time, enter the coupon code blogaboutbeer at the BeerMeMaine.com checkout and enjoy 10% off your purchase price! You can check out all of Chris’ designs at www.BeerMeMaine.com, follow them on Twitter @BeerME207 and become a fan on Facebook at Facebook.com/beermemaine Without further adieu, here’s a bit more about BeerMeMaine.com and how it came to be, straight from designer’s mouth:

BlogAboutBeer.com: How did you come up with the idea for BeerMe?

Chris Avantaggio: It began with blaze orange. Every fall a bunch of friends and I go the Maine Brewers festival. It’s always pretty chaotic at these events and we wanted a way of finding each other to re-group and compare tastings. Wearing blaze orange made the most sense. In the fall of 2009 I decided to design a t-shirt logo that we could wear to the event. After a handfull of designs that were all kind of lame, I came up with BeerME. It made perfect sense. It displays a love for the state and our beer!

BAB: What has been the reaction so far?

CA: People have been really excited about it. It’s great to see so much enthusiasm for the brand. I had a friend actually sell a shirt off his back at the Brewers Festival. I couldn’t believe that.

We’ve gotten a lot of response from fans living outside of Maine as well. Fans who no longer live in Maine but want something to wear around and show off. It’s like having a home team jersey.

Overall I would say the response has been very postive, and I’m really happy about that.

BAB: What do you have planned for the future of the company?

CA: I’d like to get some more variation in the apparel, I’ve had some requests for women’s t-shirts and other goods. More colors are always on the radar too. We’ve set up a few select wholesale accounts in Portland and we’ll be reaching out to other vendors across the state in the future. We may also offer some co/branded shirts with Maine Breweries who are interested. We’re just getting started, so there’s lots to do!

I also have some ideas for future designs, I can’t say too much, but they’ll be fun and Maine inspired!

BAB: What’s your favorite Maine beer/brewery?

CA: Ahh….man that’s a tough one. There’s so many awesome beers in Maine! How do you even judge?

If I had to pick an all time favorite, it would be Sheepscott Valley Brewing Co’s Pemaquid Ale. It’s a hearty beer fit for any occasion. Plus it comes in growlers! My wife and I served a keg of it at our wedding last summer and it was a huge hit.(which reminds me, I think we still have to get the keg shell back to them. Sorry Steve!)

BAB: And the catch-all, Anything else you think we should know?

CA: Support your local brewer! And if you’re interested in some of the goods we carry, we’re offering a special deal to the readers. Enter the discount code: blogaboutbeer in our shopping cart for a 10% off limited time offer.

The following is a guest post from Jesse King (AKA “Finks”). If you would like to contribute a guest post to BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me. Enjoy!

I love beer! I have known this since I was 18, errrm I mean 21 officer. I was raised in a home where my Dad drank Geary’s and my Mom Milwaukee’s Best Light. So I could have gone either way in the beer spectrum. Thankfully I sided towards the “better” of the two.

My journey in experiencing the vast diversity of our beloved hobby started in May of ’07. My wife and I were in Germany for her Dutch brothers wedding. My brother in law who is also American decided that while we were there we were going to take on the German/Dutch beer scene head on and never drink the same brew twice. We came to the conclusion that the best way to document what we wet our whistle with was to keep each and every cap of the brew we experienced. Well this left me with a pocket stuffed with the jingling coin like labels of some of the best beers I have ever tasted.

(click for a larger view)

I have always appreciated the art of modern day packaging, so when I came home I had to decide what to do with my new found collection. This is when I decided to not stop there. It’s one thing to say that you hate the big beer companies when your only real experience with them is drinking the occasional Budweiser or Coors Light at a friend’s party. It’s another thing all together when you can say with 100% certainty that you have drank the lion’s share of what Big Brew has put out, along side with a large assortment of what Better Beer has out there and definitively say, “You have to try Leffe Triple” or, “I won’t drink Michelob Ultra Light Tuscan Orange Grapefruit again if you put a gun to my head.” So I decided to drink any and every beer I could get my hands on for the next year (quite the feat in Arooktook County, Maine) and document it with its respective cap. Once it was all done I would compile it in what I now call my, “Man Art.”

The idea is simple. I took a stray cupboard door (you can use anything really though, ranging from picture frames to coffee tables) painted it black and then hot glued in my over 240 unique caps. Now I am not saying you need to do as I did and document your conquest in hops filled beverages like a notch in your bed post. Empty that bucket of caps you have been saving for years for no apparent reason other than it’s kind of cool and make something that will make any guy (or really cool girl) stop in awe and amazement to gaze at it like a lost Picasso.

A few tips before you start. First and foremost, consider your canvas. Place caps in your desired frame along the top and side to make sure they will fit neatly, making sure there isn’t too much or little spacing so your final product is balanced. Also bare in mind the different circumferences of pry off vs. twist off caps. If you plan on a pattern, please realize how difficult this can be, especially in a standard size frame. I have done similar framed caps for many friends and family since this project and it always comes up, “what about a cool design?” Maybe it’s a lack of imagination, but only once have I been able to successfully pull this off. In all honesty a well randomized frame really is stunning. I liken it to a grownup’s version of Where’s Waldo. Finally, how to make the caps stick? Now there are many methods but I found the best way was to use hot glue. After much trial and error I decided to just use 2 small dabs on the inside edges. If you use more than that you will see that it doesn’t really improve the adhesiveness and that you are blowing through glue sticks like a mad man.

Well there you have it, so simple yet far more fulfilling than only having a bloated belly to account for your years of downing one great cold one after another. Good luck!

Since today is the first day back to work for many after the long holiday weekend and is also what many have now come to call “Cyber Monday“, I thought it would be fitting to write up a fun post to get you in the holiday spirit. And one which would hopefully prove helpful to some. Without further adieu, here are (only in some sort of order; it’s not exact) the Top 10 Holiday Gifts for the Beer Lovers in Your Life:

10. Cornhole sets. I’m not a huge fan of most drinking games. Sure they can be fun, but they more often than not require guzzling, not savoring, large quantities of mediocre beer. And I’m obviously an advocate of quality over quantity. One game which I do love, though, and which goes great with a good brew (since there’s no need to rush your drinking while you play) is Cornhole. Cornhole.com has a great “Holiday Gift Set” which includes everything you need to play cornhole, including your choice of white or natural finished cornhole boards, 8 regulation cornhole bags, cornhole scoreboards, board and bag carrying tote bags, and 2 drink coozies. All for only $160. And it looks like right now, if you enter the coupon code: xmas10 at checkout, you’ll get 10% off your order!

9. Beer of the Month Clubs and Beer Gift Baskets. More often than not, these clubs and gift baskets are kind of a crapshoot in terms of what beers you’ll get with your order. But lately, with the continued increase in attention craft beer has been receiving from the mainstream world, clubs and gift baskets have been getting better and better with their offers. They know that a bottle of Bass Ale no longer passes as “gourmet”. If these are gifts you’re considering, check out the Beer of the Month Club from Clubs of America and the Beer Gift Basket from GourmetGiftBaskets.com. Order before December 31, enter the coupon code Brew5 and enjoy $5 off your order.

8. Craft Beer Clothing. There are some great options out there to clothe the beer fan in your life. Most every brewery has at least a decent collection of threads, often on their website. Or check out craftbeerclothing.com and the awesome beer-related shirts (see that picture over there for an example) they’re delivering on at great prices. Plus, now through December 25th, enter the coupon code: “holidaybeer” to get 15% off your entire order at craftbeerclothing.com!

7. A Brewer’s Weekend. Here in New England (and probably elsewhere in the country but I don’t know about them personally ) there are a few options for so-called “Brewer’s Weekends” which include weekend stays at inns which double as breweries and include a brewer’s dinner, hands-on brewing experiences and, well, a whole lot of beer in general. Local examples: The Woodstock Inn in N. Woodstock, NH, which has packages ranging in cost from $200 to $300 for the weekend; and The Norwich Inn in Norwich, VT, which doubles as a brewpub. Rates are $70-$150 a night, not including beer and food.

6. Beer Magazine Subscriptions. Mutineer Magazine, Beer Advocate magazine, All About Beer, Draft Magazine, Beer, Brew Your Own, Zymurgy — the official magazine of the American Homebrewers’ Association — and Beers of the World; the list goes on. But needless to say, there are lots of magazines out there to satisfy your monthly need for fresh written words on the world of craft brew.

5. A Kegerator. There are great sites out there — including KegWorks.com and Kegerators.com — which offer lots of options, from conversion kits (to make better use of that ugly old fridge sitting in your garage) to single or multi-tap pre-made kegerators. If you know someone whose been homebrewing for awhile and is finally ready to make the leap from bottles to kegging, nothing says “I love you AND your beer” like a new kegerator.

4. Stock. Oneshare.com offers single shares of stock in many big name national brands (from Apple Computers to Krispy Kreme to Playboy) including the largest American-owned brewery, The Boston Beer Co. (makers of Sam Adams) who thankfully still produce some great beers of their own. Why not show a loved one you care with a custom-framed stock certificate (The scrollwork on the Boston Beer Stock Certificate is uniquely etched with pictures of barley and hops) signed by Jim Koch.

3. Beer books. The list of great beer books out there which every beer fan should own is almost never-ending (and constantly expanding), but some must-haves for every Christmas stocking are The Brewmaster’s Table by Brooklyn Brewing’s own Garrett Oliver; He Said Beer, She Said Wine by Marnie Old and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head; The Beer Book (Hardcover); Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink (Paperback); The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer; for the entrepreneurs on your list, Brewing Up a Business and Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery; and any number of homebrewing books, including How to Brew, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, and Brew Like a Monk.

2. Beer. When all else fails, there really is no gift better than a bottle of beer itself. If you’re traveling for the holidays, maybe bring a bottle of beer your family can’t get in their home state or pick up a bottle otherwise outside of your price range for a rare holiday treat. And remember just how important pairing beer with your holiday meals is. A nice bottle of beer is “the new wine” when it comes to housewarming presents and holiday get-togethers.

1. Homebrew supplies. In my humble opinion, the single best beer-related gift you can get someone this holiday season is homebrew supplies. A homebrew starter kit and one of the how-to books above if the recipient has never brewed before, or a new supply kit or even gift certificate if you know a homebrewer. I have long maintained that nothing gets someone into beer, into appreciating better beer like knowing what it takes to brew your own. If you don’t have a local homebrew supply shop you can buy from, check out northernbrewer.com, austinhomebrew.com and the Brooklyn Brew Shop (see my write-up of their awesome business here).

Happy holidays and happy (beer) shopping! What would you add to the list?

Some breweries have some pretty damn cool bottle caps and it’s always a shame to just toss them in the garbage after every beer. So I’ve decided to turn a few of my favorite caps (or favorite breweries) into a little art project so I can continue to show them off, well after the beer is gone: Bottle Cap Magnets.

I can’t claim this project as my own (I saw it on a friend’s fridge a few days ago), but it’s still a fun project to do with a little weekend spare time and some left-over bottle caps.

What You’ll Need:

• Bottle caps (one for each magnet you plan to make)
• Magnets (I found some little round magnets at AC Moore that were $1.59 for dozen or so magnets)
• Thick scrap paper (I just used the back of the package the magnets came in)
• Krazy glue

How To Make Your Magnets:

1. Drink a beer & keep the cap (try not to bend it; if you do, straighten it out as much as you can)
2. Unfortunately the magnets I got weren’t quite deep enough to attach to the back of the cap directly and still reach the fridge, so I ripped up a little piece of the thick scrap paper, glue it together and glued it to the back of the cap.
3. Glue one of the magnets to the scrap paper inside the cap.
4. Stick on the fridge.
5. Repeat until you have all the magnets you want.

So yeah, quite a simple and inexpensive little project. But the result is much more fun than a boring old “Montana” or “Domino’s” fridge magnet, and its a great way to continue to show off some of those really special beers you’ve been drinking. Happy crafting!