Home brew swap website (brewshuffle.com)

[gauzzastrip]

I am looking for some people to help me test a site I built that will help home brewers facilitate home brew swapping (not wives, just home brew) and event planning. I was curious if you guys would be interested in giving me any feedback / suggestions / ideas. If not, that's fine too, I could just use a good core group of home brewers to test out the site and give some fresh ideas of what would be most useful.
The site is http://brewshuffle.com
Thanks.

[nico soze]

U shouldn't be so quick to leave wives out of the scenario. Ill give you a case of my stout for your wife. Its imperial....

All joking aside ill check it out. This seems like the kind of thing I can get behind. (Another wifeswap joke...hehe) so is this open to the public and ready for use yet? Because I got a few other places I could spread the word on this...

[gauzzastrip]

Haha.
It is open to the public with the caveat that it may have some bugs living in there that I won't be able to know about until I get more people using it in 1 area. I don't want to slap a "beta" tag on there, because it is a website, and once it's out there, to me, you can't really call it "beta".
That being said, it would be awesome if you could spread the word. I'm not sure yet how the server will handle a giant load of people, but that is a problem I would welcome with open arms if the site gets to that point.
Thanks for taking a look and please let me know if you have any ideas / suggestions on how to make the site more useful for home brewers.

[nico soze]

I'm finding it essentially unusable on my phone, but that's par for the course on my phone. Ill play w it more when I get home. One quick suggestion: when you "create beer" it doesn't allow you to not know your srm or ABv. You have to put a number there. What if I'm stupid? It Gabe me an illegal character error page w a bunch of garbage on it. Again only on phone, haven't tried on a laptop yet. Also the style drop down menu is kind of awkward. Why not just use bjcp style names and numbers? Oh and I'd prefer to pick my user name instead of just using my email address. Great concept though. Just needs ironing out.

[nico soze]

Here's a fun idea: how about linking to untappd so that when I create a beer on your site it automatically creates it there too?

[gauzzastrip]

I'm finding it essentially unusable on my phone, but that's par for the course on my phone.

I know I tested it on a friends android and logging in was not working (probably because cookies or something) but it is definitely something I will be looking into . I just don't have a smart phone easily accessible for testing. My wife does have an IPad and I know it fully works on there.

when you "create beer" it doesn't allow you to not know your srm or ABv.

SRM / OG / FG / IBU should not be required (you can leave them blank). I just went on the site clicked "Add brew" and put only a title in and it created it. If it was stopping you from adding a brew and you had left those fields black if you could provide me with a browser / version / OS so I can look into it, thanks.

It Gabe me an illegal character error page w a bunch of garbage on it.

I noticed that in my logs, damn double quotes in the brew name. I've fixed that and it should be working now.

Also the style drop down menu is kind of awkward. Why not just use bjcp style names and numbers?

I will have to check in and see if they have a downloadable list that I will be able to insert into my database, I thought I got mine from a place that used BCJP. I just looked and I got my style list from beeradvocate.

Oh and I'd prefer to pick my user name instead of just using my email address

I just requested an email because a lot of times you have to fight with users to sign up, I thought it would be easier to ask for just an email address. You can change your brewery name or public display name after the fact here http://brewshuffle.com/Account/General

Here's a fun idea: how about linking to untappd so that when I create a beer on your site it automatically creates it there too?

If they have an open API and are willing to let me add data to their database I will. I have never really looked at their site that much. I have to look into it.

Thank you for your suggestions

[nico soze]

it may have been a combined problem....the first time i put ? in the srm category and it said "you must use accepted characters", then i left it blank and it took me to the bad character screen. didn't realize they were separate issues. bjcp.org has a list of their beer style names and numbers, i don't know much about what you're doing, but i would think you can just copy/paste into the dropdown menu. all i'm saying is the way its formatted (by country first, then color, then style) is kinda cumbersome to read and find. again, alot of these problems COULD just be my "smart"phone. let me play with it again now that i'm home.

[nico soze]

oh yeah wow. the real website is alot better. let me play around for a little while. i'm davis family brewing on there now...

[gauzzastrip]

bjcp.org has a list of their beer style names and numbers, i don't know much about what you're doing, but i would think you can just copy/paste into the dropdown menu.

I wish it were that easy, but that drop down is built dynamically from a database. But, I just grabbed an excel spread sheet from bjcp and parsed out all their data into my database (it's wasn't formatted very friendly) and then changed all the currently beers that were assigned to the old categories to the new categories. It was a pain, but it's done now and should be displaying correctly.

I also looked into the untapped.com API and they don't allow any inserts of brewery/beer they just allow looking up info. I could email them, but they would probably just say it's not for home brewers or something. It also looks like they charge breweries to have a page / list all their beers, which is something I couldn't do for ever user / beer being added.

[nico soze]

my brewery is featured in untappd. as are all my beers. the place is half for homebrew, as its all user submitted information. i just click "create beer" when i check into mine, and type davis family brewing as the brewery. theres even a button to indicate if its homebrew. if you're a beer head, you should download the app and play with it a little. it's fun. you collect trophies for completing drinking tasks such as tasting 1000 unique beers, drinking the same beer 10 days in a row, drinking a beer at the brewery, etc. and i check in to all my friends homebrew on there. even the ones who don't play. i just created their breweries myself.

i'm having trouble figuring out a way to locate brewers near me. i know that's partially because there probably isnt any yet, but there seems to be trouble with the maps and stats information kinda. when i search my zipcode, it only shows me of course, but i would think when i zoom the map out to the whole country, it should show other points on the map, but only i show up and alot of the "top cities" in stats, it doesn't show any breweries when you click on it, but it said 1 brewery on the stats page. and i know for a fact that snbbrewing is in califonia, not oklahoma as its shown. StarRaptor, chime in here if you did that on purpose.

speaking of the stats page, it would be nice to have a "see more" button below each stat, so i could expand and see a top 50 or whatever. i'm still playing with it...i'll report more later

[nico soze]

yeah it seems to be if you don't input the correct zipcode, it doesn't show up at all.

[nico soze]

you know a message board would be a great touch. maybe there is one...but i haven't found it yet


also, if i search for gauzza i get like 9 results, but any other brewery, even ones i KNOW are on your site, including mine, nothing comes up. matter of fact, nothing pops up except google ads for anything except what i'm assuming is your beers.

[nico soze]

after about 30 mins it made me sign in again, even though i've been using it non stop. and when i do sign in, it automatically takes me to the profile actions page instead of like a homepage or something. i'd like to see a more robust "brewery homepage" that could serve as a jumping point when you sign in. it could just be the one you already have, but give us more room to put things on it.

and no, the style drop down menu still looks the same.

edit: i see a little better now. it should take me to the brewers page, not the general info/account page. i'd still like to see the brewers page be better. like let me upload a logo, and put up a bio, maybe a comments section...

[gauzzastrip]

I did not know untappd was for homebrewing too but,
http://untappd.com/api/docs/v3
on the right there it shows you everything you can do in their api, but there is no function for adding a brewery / brew. Like I said I will try to email them and see what they say.

Map scrolling - for right now, I am only showing you results in an area around your lat/long. If I were to add the functionality to re-load to where ever the map center is when done scrolling it would pretty much kill the server. I plan on making a big map that you can scroll around eventually if the site works out and I can upgrade to a better hosting plan.

Also about the map, I turn a lat / long into the closest zipcode and cache the results for 3 minutes (so I don't kill my own server). So that might be why some people that just joined aren't showing up. It also only shows brewers that have beer exchanges available.

Stats - That was something I whipped up quickly the other day (mostly for search engines). A view more button will probably get implemented eventually, it's just not on the top of my list.

You have to at least put a zipcode in or else I don't really know where you are. If you view the map before you register I save that lat / long / zipcode and insert it if you register. If not, then you gotta update your address after the fact.

The search is powered by google, whatever google has indexed is what returns in the search. Because brewshuffle is a brand new site and there hasn't been much attention to it, google has put it low on the indexing list. As more people use the site / talk about it in other formats (social networking / forums / whatnot) google will index it much quicker and that search will update faster. I apologize that it's like that, it's just the way it is though :\

I tried to steer away from message boards because most people use the ones they already use and it's hard to get people to actively use a message board unless you are an uber popular site (so mine would look empty and no one would use it) and you also have to moderate it then. What would you use a message board for if you don't mind me asking (there may be other solutions besides a msg board). There is a private message system. Also if the site works out I plan on adding "groups" which could have a comment section on it. For a quick fix I added a "watch list" (basically a friends/follow list) so you can keep track of brewers you're interested in.

Thanks so much for spending this much time looking at brewshuffle, I really do appreciate it and I enjoy all your input.

[nico soze]

and if i drink a beer, how do i indicate that i have, and review it? i just noticed you write a reply, i'll read it right now. i'm having fun playing with this thing. and i'm advertising it in all my brewing groups. don't take any of this as insults or critisms, i really think this thing could take off with some polishing.