This week you may have noticed a new sidebar (on desktop) or content block at the bottom of the page (mobile) on some beer pages named: "Available Nearby." This widget was developed by my coworkers at Untappd to help BeerAdvocate users find the currently viewed beer on menus from verified venues on Untappd. It's been in beta testing for Respect Beer Society members since July 31, 2020, but I'm stoked to announce that the widget is now live for public testing! The above screenshot is where I can find Pliny the Elder near me. Awesome! How does it work? So far, we've matched around 7,000 of our most popular/top beers to test things out. More beers will become available on the widget as this continues to develop. It's IP based at the moment, so if you're using a VPN, Tor, or other proxy-based service your results might not match your current location. The nearby radius is currently set to 50 miles. No widget? It'll only display when a positive match occurs, which means that the beer is part of the widget dataset and it’s been added to an Untappd verified venue's menu within 50 miles of the location associated with your current IP address. Things I'm pushing for: Sync all beers! This is a massive task, but the benefits will be more than worth it. Better visibility for mobile users. Most of our traffic is mobile, so I'd like to see the widget auto-adjust its display accordingly based on the user's device. Add support for user geolocation for more accurate results. Exclude venues with outdated menus. You can see in screenshot that some of those added dates are old. We can do better here. We still have a lot of work to do, but I think it's going to bring a ton of value to our members, visitors, and Untappd for Business clients over time. It's also a great example of how Next Glass brands can work together. Got feedback? Give it a try at home or on your phone while you're out and about. Let me know what you think. We'll be using your feedback to make improvements. Thanks in advance!
Saw that and agree it's a great new feature. Also saw that when looking at a beer rating/review and clicking on the 'Beer Tools' and then 'Suggest an Edit' that there is an option for 'Beer Availability". Can this be used to supplement the Untapped list?
I didn't even realize that was a Society-only perk until now, happy everyone has access to this useful tool now too
How about adding the venue name to the location info? Many of the bars' thumbnails don't have the name or aren't legible on mobile.
Is there an easy way to make it available not just by beer but by brewery? Ie, I go to the Russian River page on BA and it shows me places nearby that carry anything from them.
most excellent tool! I need to test it out and see if some of my local places are matched correctly with their beer offerings.
Should be on the right side of the page. But like Todd was saying it’s only like the 1-7000 of the highest rated beers that are listed, and it’ll only show up if it’s available within 50 miles of you. It seems like it doesn’t list the brewery itself as one of those places
I posted about the widget in the Society forum in July and emailed everyone, but I mention its placement and how it works in my post (sidebar on desktop, bottom of page on mobile, but only if there's a match). It does, but only if the brewery is a verified venue, it's added the beer to their menu, the beer beer is in the dataset, and there's been a match to the user that's viewing the beer. Example: I looked up Easy Jack from Firestone Walker and it shows that The Propagator currently has it.
Just saw this the other day and I am all for it, however, the zip code accuracy places me about 10 miles away from my location, likely based on my ISP's hub.
I would second this, if it were possible. It would be a useful feature (and save some clicks) when traveling to a distro footprint of a brewery I wanted to try... without caring much about *which* beer from them I found. @Todd - thoughts about feasibility?
I'll be collecting feedback from this thread and reviewing feature requests, improvements, and any bugs with the team.
Bummer....on both my Android phone and my laptop I am only getting results near Wichita KS even though I am in CA. My phone is not using my home internet....it is using Verizon...and that is the extent of my IT knowledge. Clearly, to be useful to me it will need to ability to put in a zip code or other expression of actual physical location. I do love the idea to search for anything at all from a brewery instead of only a specific beer.
Nice feature! I'm having fun with this feature. When I'm using my phone network (Sprint/ T-Mobile) I get results for Chicago. When I switch my phone to my home wifi I get local Cincinnati results.
Make sure your browser has permission to use your location. That might no be an option on your laptop. Using IP geolocation my work WiFi shows me in NYC while Verizon data has me in Syracuse while my browser uses my phone's location.
....or they could just improve the widget to show info for any zip code you choose to provide. I will want info on where I will be, not where I am
Can't disagree, but the purpose of the widget is to automatically generate the beer's local locations without user input. A better method for “out of town” would be integrating Untappd menus with BA's places. Pull up a venue on Places and get the location, BA reviews, and which beers they have listed on Untappd
Funny but I had mentioned something similar to @Todd only related to BA Places that were also Untappd Verified Venues.
Then the widget has failed to meet the objective. Telling me that some place 2000 miles away has a beer I like has zero value when that is the only location it reports.
I'm in CA, but when I read reviews under "available nearby" it gives me establishments in KS. What uh what's going on?
Food for though for all of you living in one place but everyone things you happen to be in Kansas https://lifehacker.com/why-does-my-ip-address-come-from-a-different-state-1829552450
Desktop or cell phone? Without a built-in GPS you're probably going to see what is “nearby” to wherever your IP address is registered. My laptop doesn't have a built-in GPS, “nearby” shows either me in NYC (where my ISP's addresses are registered) or Buffalo (my VPN). On cell phone if I deny location permissions to my browser I'm either in NYC (wi-fi) or Syracuse (cell data). When I turn on GPS and give location permission “nearby” shows where I really am.
This is a great idea, thanks. I just tried it out with a random beer that I know is available in a lot of spots (Founders Porter). The "available nearby" did indeed pop up and I saw that the first location was less than four miles away. It had a link that said "view menu," which I did, but Founders Porter was not listed on the menu. I thought maybe it wasn't on their draft list, it was on a bottle list, but no bottle list is posted.