Is there a website that works with beer distributors to list distribution schedules? Why is this information so time consuming to get? Imagine how convenient it would be to look up a beer, and see the many party stores it will be arriving at in a 25 mile radius around you, with the exact date for each store. How great would it be to be able to pull up all scheduled releases for the next couple weeks, instead of sifting through countless threads on this website, twitter, and other places. Special rare releases could easily be hid from the public due to concern with hoarders/chasers (although while consumers care, I wonder if companies do). Perhaps, like seekabrew.com, the information just isn't valuable enough to make the investment worthwhile?
To comb through all of the distributors in all of the states would be time consuming as hell and not likely worth the effort. Besides, most places tend to get a weekly shipment from their distributor, so their deliveries tend to fall on the same day each week. A little bit of effort on your part, if this information is so valuable, will go a long way. Just ask your local stores when they get their shipments and either remember the information or write it down somehow. And making it by the beer, that's just insane. You'd have better luck petitioning the industry to install RFID tags on every bottle they produce so that each one can be tracked wherever it goes. Just drink what you find when you find it. Jonesing for a specific brew? Make some calls/e-mails/tweets/what-have-you. Too lazy for that? Can't help ya.
You'd take away the fun of the hunt. But the user of such an information system would be us, thus we would have to financially support such a system, and I don't see the cost benefit to cause me to fork over some bucks.
Probably not going to happen. The best thing I can think of is having the store tweet or post out their new beers. A few places near me have social media accounts that post all their new beers. Try to convince the store it would bring in more revenue or something (which it does). and it saves them several phone calls asking for specific beers.
Your best bet is to look at the distributors website in your area and get to know who carries which beers, and then talk with your local beer stores, etc to see when they get their regular deliveries from said distributors; Once you know these things, it is not all that hard to just check social media, or call or stop in to these places to get what you are looking for.....I have a couple of my fav places hold stuff for me, and they are happy to call me when they get it in....we are making "buying beer" much more difficult and giving it a higher priority than it really needs.....it is BEER people! We are not curing cancer here....
A lot of distributors and suppliers have a beer finder. Problem with it is that the data used goes through what's called a VIP system and that system is consistently about 3 days behind as distributors have to "load" the data into the system to report. Doesn't work well for rare releases. Also, not all breweries use VIP as it's expensive. As for an accurate release schedule, that's a little pie in the sky as many distributors don't know what/when they're getting it until it hits their dock.
Many are incompetent at the tasks they already have to accomplish, so this is beyond realistic expectation. Look at how good they are at pulling expired beers.
Thanks for the feedback folks. I think more than a few of you just said "stop being lazy," albeit in a very polite fashion. Maybe one day, we'll have the framework to have more of our work done for us!
That'd be great - I always forget to check Facebook, never seem to get anything but garbage tweets, and if I wasn't constantly going to my beer stores on the way home from work, I'd be missing out on tons of stuff (best recent example: I stumbled upon the KBS shipment at my store yesterday ). I'd love to have some sort of schedule or website that let me know what was coming where and when...
