How Important is an Updated Beer Menu Online?

Absolutely essential. I can't tell you how many times I've looked for places places to eat on Yelp, Google, etc and quickly discard the places that don't have updated tap lists on their website, beermenus, taplister, etc.

 

Very important since I use it 99% of the time unless I am headed to a Particular brewery.... I choose my restaurants based on beermenus

 

The menus are useful to give us an idea of their attitude toward beer but my choice will be what's fresh when I get there.

 

When it works it can be very important. One of my favorite places to take my wife for dinner serves good food we both enjoy, has rotating taps, and keeps their online list so current that part of the task of changing the tap is also updating the web site.

So in over 30 visits there's only been one keg that kicked between when I checked the list and when I got there wanting to order it. Very helpful and much appreciated by many of their customers. In addition its quite clear online which beers are most recently tapped and which were tapped longest ago.

 

Absolutely a must. Maybe there is not a real need of a daily update but at least a weekly or biweekly update. This goes for bars, tasting rooms and growler filling places.

 

I said "very important" for a couple reasons. First, most of the time if I go to a bar, it's to have a specific beer or beers (tap takeovers, new release, that sort of thing). If they don't have a way to inform me of that, I'll never get there.

Second, most have printed menus that are out of date or, worse yet, no menu at all, when you get there. If they have an up to date menu online, I can figure out what I want easily. Some places have gone to TV's on the wall that list the available beers, but unless I happen to bring my glasses, those do me no good unless I get up and stand closer to them. (My vision is just bad enough that I can't read those, but not bad enough that I feel like I need my glasses all the time).

If I were running a bar or restaurant, I'd have an up to date online list and electronic beer menus (something like a tablet) to give to customers who ask about the tap list.

 

A must, first how hard is it to update the board. And I'd be pissed if I went there for one beer and it kicked a couple days ago.

 

I don't look at them usually unless I'm traveling and doing some research before I go. It just seems like it would be beneficial to have on your site and isn't that hard to implement really.

Been to a couple places that have a picture taken every hour of their tap list by a webcam and automatically puts it on the website. It's not very hard or expensive to do for a beer focused bar/store or brewery.

 

I don't care in my hometown because there are 4 good places to drink good beer and they all have the same shit. But when I'm in CA or New England visiting family I care much more. This is because there are so many good places and I have limited time, so I want to know that if I'm going to spend my limited time drinking, it's going to be at a good place. The online menu makes this a more convenient process. Of course you could gamble and figure any given place will have a few great beers to drink, but I'm likely to go to the place that has the menu listed online so that my limited time isn't spent gambling.

 

When I am stuck at one of these places, I leave the table as soon as I arrive and tour the taps visually, asking the bartender if I can't tell (a Dogfish tap handle gives me the brand, not the beer for example). The servers are useless. A written menu is a plus, if accurate.

I think any beer focused bar needs to have an updated online tap list. It can't be too hard. This place does it exactly right.

 

I don't really hold it against the servers in those places because it all comes down from the top where management wants the perks of offering craft but does little or nothing to educate their staff. There has been a few times when I've had a waitress show me a scrap of paper she's written beer names on because she presumably gets asked so much. One of those times I had to laugh as the word "logger" was on the list.

 

It's very important to me..certain bars I'll frequent regardless of an updated tap list because I know from experience that they will always have 1 or 2 beers I know I'll be interested in..but the ones I don't go to a lot or a new bar I'm trying the first time or on the fence about, it's pretty much essential as it could be the deciding factor of going or not

 

Two points. One is that if you check online , by the time you arrive the beer you want may be sold out. The other is that no beer is indispensible.As long as there is something that you like then you should be happy. It's even possible that a replacement beer is even more to your liking than theone you wanted.
As we say about buses, miss one and there will be two along in a minute.

 

I'd think it was important if any bar within 50 miles HAD an online tap list, but since there isn't I guess I'm in the don't care list

 

Very Important

Especially for my local breweries; it may be the deciding factor whether I go or not. If my favorite is on draft, I'll make a point to go. If something exciting is on draft, I'll make a point to go. If it's ho-hum, I'll only probably still go

 

Well, maybe if you didn't live on an abandoned oil platform 51 miles off the coast, it might be more applicable for you.

 

Given that my decision to visit a place or not is based largely on their beer selection I would say that it's pretty important that their online lists are updated.

 

It is very usefull. If I'm going out for beers, it determines where I go......

 

This is definitely the most annoying thing. I went to a neighborhood bar that was trying to promote themselves as "crafty" with 30 taps, but there wasn't a written beer list anywhere in the building. It made picking a beer quite the ordeal.

 

I love finding new places to eat, but typically it's based on what beers they offer. Any website that says "Over 30 rotating taps" or anything of that sort without listing what beers they are immediately gets discarded. Also any place that doesn't update their tap list I will not go back to. I hate reading a decent tap list just to go somewhere that says they have a few good beers on tap then they say they kicked the kegs on all of the beers a few days ago. I mean, if it's 1 or 2 beers on tap that I really want then I'll call to make sure they still have it. But when you have 5 good beers listed and you don't actually have any of them on tap...that's just poor business.

I understand that kegs kick all of the time, I don't expect tap lists to be 100% accurate all of the time, but it's still something restaurant/bar owners should be on top of constantly. Typically most places off the same food everyday so that's not going to change, but when you are constantly changing beers the daft list should be updated a minimum of once a day.