This article covers how to locate a specific beer type near your location. The use of the Untappd service provides a quick query of closest beer stops to find great beer. Untapped includes local tap houses, gas stations, grocery stores or beer providers and provides you with options for purchase.
What is the value of time? This question has lingered in my head since I was in elementary school.
I remember my elementary school years including a lot of “playtime” at home. Junior high and high school years changed to “free time”, which I used to play sports, go to arcades, attend movies and concerts. College years became “nap time” to recoup lost sleep to meet assignment and exam deadlines.
When I entered the work force after college graduation, “free time” became “catch up time”. I’d hang with friends or complete chores around the house. Finding gifts for family members birthdays and holidays, and more importantly ensuring that I had a good work/life balance. Now that I’m a father of three young kids and I’ve survived the sleep deprivation phase, my free time has a new term called “efficient time.”
Efficient time means that any errands/activities I do need to be done as quickly and accurately as possible, since all of my waking hours are focused on raising kids. Trying to keep my hobbies going and finding some relaxation time has been a challenge since becoming a father, but its a challenge worth working on a daily basis.
Big Chain Stores for Beer – Hit and Miss
I used to have “catch up time” to shop for craft beers, before becoming a father. I would go to national chain stores (Total Wine & More and BevMo!) and take my time looking at all of the bottles and cans. I’d hope that something would jump off the shelves and into my basket.
I based beer purchases on in-store reviews, price, brewery location and sometimes reading reviews on BeerAdvocate.com. This beer buying model worked most of the time. Until fresh beer and hazy IPAs started to dominate the craft beer market in 2016. I found good beers for my growlers based on tasting samples, beer type and brewery location.
I was able to use the national chain stores and dartboard approach until mid-2016. Around this time frustration set in with empty shopping trips and not being educated on where to find good beers. I continued to fall back on BeerAdvocate.com beer reviews. Wordy beer descriptions and scoring categories were helpful, but I couldn’t hone in on popular beers or where to buy them. I was back in the dart board throw beer finding model again, and I wasn’t close to hitting the bullseye. Still going in circles and not getting any smarter. I was working harder to find tasty craft beers.
Find Great Beer Near You
I needed some advice and guidance on how to find better beer. I had transitioned to looking online at tap lists and literally driving quickly to where good beers were being poured. That approach is hit-and-miss. I wasn’t paying attention to taping dates and how quickly some beers were being purchased by consumers. I was also pinging all of my beer friends, and most of them weren’t sharing secrets or they were using the same approach I was.
My third kid was born in October 2018. I quickly realized that my limited “free time” was going to be drastically reduced more. In order to shop for craft beer I needed to be smarter and not working harder. I needed to discard the national chain stores and dart board models and start fresh. For some random reason and three hours after kid #3 was born, I took a quick look at my iPhone and saw a beer app I had downloaded two years earlier and had never really studied or used called Untappd.
I opened the app, looked at it briefly and wondered “how does this thing work?” It only took one week for me to fully harness all of the information and data in Untappd to make my craft beer hobby significantly more enjoyable and more importantly, efficient. I truly wish I had started using Untappd earlier.
Use Untappd App To Search for Beer
Beer ratings on Untappd have a scale of 0.00 – 5.00. All Untappd users have freedom to utilize the grading scale based on their palate, but I’ve used this scoring scale since late 2018:
- Extraordinary beer 4.75 – 5.00
- Exceptional beer 4.50 – 4.75
- Very good beer 4.25 – 4.50
- Good beer 4.00 – 4.25
- Above average beer 3.75 – 4.00
- Average beer 3.50 – 3.75
- Not recommended beer 2.00 – 3.50
Simple rule of thumb is to try any beer rated 4.00 or higher if possible. If you find any beer rated 4.50 or higher, take your time with that pint/can/bottle/crowler/growler and see if it measures up to the hype of previous ratings. Beers scoring 3.75 – 4.00 have a tendency to taste the same, some are good, some are bad, but you might find some hidden gems that please your palate, which is the fun part in finding tasty craft beers.
Find Beers Near You with Untappd
In order to focus on highly rated beers that are located a set distance from your current cellphone location, the Trending Beers link in Untappd allows you to search beers using a filter for 1,5,10,20,25,30,50,75 or 100 miles from your current location. This link is incredibly useful to find beers you are looking for. Great beers will be purchased as soon as the cans are placed on the store shelves or the keg is tapped. Rule of thumb remains the same, any beer rated 4.00 or higher is definitely worth tracking down if you like that particular beer style. Filtering by specific beer styles and driving distance can make Trending Beer on Untappd searches significantly more accurate.
Click on the Trending Beers link to track down in person and potentially purchase. Locate the beer name in Untappd, then click on the FIND IT link to see verified locations of where that beer is available. You can adjust the distance from your current location to see if additional stores/taprooms have that beer. The FIND IT link has proved to be a valuable resource to make my beer shopping time become “efficient time.”
Discover New Venues Providing Great Beer
A different beer searching approach utilizes the Nearby Venues link in Untappd. Verified nearby venues will automatically appear in shortest distance from where your cellphone is currently located. Clicking on a venue will take you to that venue’s detailed tap list and have all of the applicable information for each beer (beer name, brewery, beer type, and rating). I toggle between Nearby Venues and Trending Beers to hone in on the beer types I like and/or if I’ve found a highly rated beer that is on the street and trying to find it ASAP for purchase.
Finding Trending Beer Now
If you are traveling or a craft beer rookie, you can use the the Trending Locations link in Untappd to find brewery/taprooms/bottleshops recommendations for cities you are unfamiliar with. Enter a city, state or zip code to see what venues are trending for that location. I’ve used this link with moderate success for friends and family members. It is much easier than conducting a simple Google search.
Track Your Beers
The easiest and most used function in Untappd is to log in and track the beers you’ve tasted. Logging your beers helps jog your memory. It is great to track your beer. You can track when you’ve had, where you had it, how it was poured (pint, can, bottle, crowler, growler) and your rating score of 0.00 – 5.00.
Logging in beers you’ve tried leads to metrics. Track favorite beer styles, highest rated to lowest rated beers, and breweries that you’ve visited. More importantly this section of the Untappd app will ensure you aren’t doubling up on beer ratings for the same beer. All beer geeks have been there, just try to avoid this route.
Finally, you can track your beer ratings compared to your friend’s ratings. It can be fun to create a group of beer friends on Untapped to compare notes. Share stories of tracking down Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing.
“Efficient time” is critical in this day and age due to COVID restrictions and whether you are a parent or not. Embrace the Untappd app to open up new craft beer doors for you and keep the beer journey going.
Try to Find a Great Beer
Here is an article we wrote for Winter 2021 beers. Download the Untappd application and locate some great beers near you.
Cheers and keep it classy everyday!
