Love managing my beer collection in Excel

I like this idea.

There is a lot more I need to inventory. Perhaps I'll tackle that next snowy weekend and start populating a rating column for future use.

 

I like you.

 

Love it! Although I'm terrified to list anything pertaining to $$$. I don't want to know how much I've spent.

 

Glad we can help. However, I love showing my wife the checkins of others on Untappd. There's a guy I follow that will frequently have 20+ beers at bars/breweries in a single day. I do the rough financial math (you know $100+ spent) so she won't get mad at me for spending $25 at a craft beer bar.

 

When I'm just picking a beer to drink for the evening, I usually filter and sort the spreadsheet by style or ABV, and make my selection on that basis. I use the best by date mostly to make sure I'm not sitting on things too long - if there is a best by date on the bottle or the brewer's website.

I do sometimes write myself a note to "try by this date" when I have multiples of something and want to see how it has developed at X point in time.

 

My cellar spreadsheet came in a roundabout way- I had started collecting stouts for "Stout Appreciation Night" with some friends of mine at first we we so laid back we didn't even keep notes. Then one person started keeping basic records (date, beer, name of taster, rating and note) From there we kept adding and have made it to the point we are at now (seen below if it will all fit) but I suspect we will be having additional tweaks soon as my education (and theirs) continues to grow. (as apparently so does the number of beers in the cellar - over 350 at last count)
Anyway, here is our worksheet in 3 tabs:

Sheet 1- Ratings:
Date (Date of the SAN)
Taster
Brewer
Beer Basic name of the beverage
Variant (Double Oatmeal, Russian Imperial, etc...)
Barrel Aged? Either no or type of barrel aged in)
ABV
Year (that the beer was brewed)
Rating (1-5 in .25 increments
Comments

Sheet 2- Metrics:
Beer
BA Type (Bourbon, Rum, Wine, Maple Syrup, etc...)
Year
Avg Rate (The testers average)

Sheet 3- Cellared:
Brewery
Beer
BA? (Yes or No)
Year
Quan
Format (can/bottle and oz)
Tested? (Is this on tab 1?) --Redundant given the next column
Avg/Mine (Avg from the group trial and my take at the time)
Notes
Variant (Imp Russian, Milk, coffee, oatmeal, etc...)
Non-Stout (Belgian Quad, browns, IPAs, Dunkels, etc...)
Theme (For future tasting night IE: RN for Russian night)
SAN or Personal? (Some of these are just things I like that are either not stouts or I know are not the groups preference)

 

Thanks, you started me thinking on ways to make it better, no doubt. And I can't claim credit for all the ideas, it was truly a group compilation. Just the second two tabs are mine, more for trying to spot trends (IE: none of us were fond of stouts that had been aged in wine barrels or cherry stouts, BA or not.) to know what not to focus on in the future and of course, to know what's down there.
Cheers, and happy number crunching!

 

I've thought about setting up a similar (though probably much less detailed) spreadsheet as my cellar has grown over the last year or so. I'm still only at about 50 beers, so it's not that hard to look through them, but I like the idea of tracking it. I also have a few beers that the only difference in appearance for the different vintages is a small number on the bottom corner of the label, so having another way of tracking them would be nice.

I don't think I need multiple sheets, or even that many columns, but those that have posted their categories have certainly given me more of an idea of the data I want to keep track of.

 

I just stumbled across this thread -- and yep, I've got a sort of ridiculous Excel spreadsheet that I use to manage/track my inventory, consumption, and plenty of other things.

Just covering the main parts:

Tab 1 - inventory - columns for a) beer/brewery name, b) specific style, c) "summary style" (for example, this lumps sours, flanders, wild ales, gose, etc into "sours"), d) ABV, e) size in oz/ml, f) location (a drop down which is currently populated with things like "right hand shelving unit, 3rd row from bottom, middle") so I can find what I'm looking for, g) quantity on hand, and h) whether it's a new tick. It also has columns listing who sent it to me, if there's anyone in particular I plan on sending it to or sharing it with, and general comments.

at the bottom of that page I have totals of how many beers are in each specific location and how many open slots there are, along with the style(s) or breweries I have there ("Russian Imperial Stouts" or "BCBS variants" or "local stouts", for example).

Tab 2 - history - columns for brewery, beer, and ABV; followed by 2 sets of ratings (one for BA, one for untappd) listing style, my rating, overall rating, and the difference between mine and the general consensus.

Tab 3 - pivots that summarize all the rankings by brewery and/or style

Then I also have secondary tabs where I track shipments I've sent with details on what I included, rosters of people I've been in multiple BIF's with, lists of glassware and beer "attire", tracking grids for BIFs, and BA's I've met in person (up to 32 as of this weekend).

The inventory tab is obviously the most useful, especially when trading or participating in a BIF or choosing what to share with neighbors who have pretty consistent preferences.

 

I was so excited about the topic that I posted before reading through everything -- and your initial post tells me we are remarkably similar in our spreadsheets. I'm probably not gonna comment on too many others, but WILL read them all!

 

While I track ratings in my history tab, I intentionally do NOT include any on my inventory tab, for the exact reason you mention. But after the fact, it's good to realize that (for example), I typically rank an old ale well above the general population, or that I still prefer West Coast IPA's to NEIPA's.

 

I've got about 225 beers cellared at the moment, anything seriously time sensitive (mainly IPA's) are in my beer fridge and color coded in green on my inventory tab. (for real) I have a few "go to" IPA's I'll usually keep in stock, but not many and I don't reload if I've recently acquired any elsewhere.

 

I mostly keep one main tab with inventory details. I used to keep location information, such as numbered boxes and which fridge it was in. However, I found that it was too much work tracking beers as they moved from cellar to fridge to consumption. I do keep beers on the list with a zero quantity, as it lets me know what I have owned. I've started multiple pivot tables off the main one to track attributes such as barrel aged beers or bombers.

Columns:
ID - This came when I first used Access for data entry
Brewery Name - Commonly used name for brewery (ex. Founders)
Beer Name
Beer Style - Not complete, but I try to give a full description (ex. Maple BA Chocolate Coffee Imperial Stout for CBS)
Beer Category - Wider classification (stout, porter, IPA, etc.)
Quantity
Vintage
ABV
BA Beer?
Brewery - Full name for brewery (ex. Founders Brewing)
Location
Size - Input for a formula. Ounces up to 22, otherwise milliliters
Format - Can/Bottle
Measure - Calculated field based on Size column
Volume - Combines Size and Measure (ex. 22 oz.)
% of Inventory

 

How does everyone update their sheets? During an evening/session, I place consumed (and rinsed) beers next to my sink. Afterward or the next day, I write down the beer names on a whiteboard I keep on the fridge and move the bottles/cans to my bottle/can return area in the garage. Then, every so often, I'll take the whiteboard and update my spreadsheet and erase the whiteboard.

 

Dood. You win.

 

OTOH, maybe you're the winner.