Updating and adding Beer Guides

Help Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by FrankLloydMike, Jun 19, 2012.

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  1. FrankLloydMike

    FrankLloydMike Maven (1,308) Aug 16, 2006 Massachusetts

    I remember some threads on the old forum site covering this, but can't find anything in the new forum.

    I'm wondering if there's anyone to recommend updating/adding Beer Guides for various cities. Many seem not to have been updated, and few seem to have been added in awhile.

    Personally, I'd like to see a few more Beer Guides, without having one for every city of course. But there have been plenty of times when I've been looking for bars in an area that may technically be across a city line or something, and either missing it or having to scan through a bunch of individual towns to find.

    Beer guides are useful when I'm looking for new places that I'm familiar with, but even more so when I'm visiting someplace entirely new. And in that regard, they need to work well as travel guides for people who don't know the names of the towns right outside Boston or Seattle or wherever.

    Looking at my home state of New Hampshire, the Portsmouth Beer Guide includes only the cities of Portsmouth and Dover, which are separated by a town (albeit with nothing beer-worthy) in between. It misses breweries--soon to include Smuttynose once they move next year--in towns just a few miles south and some excellent bars right across the river from downtown Portsmouth in Kittery, Maine. It seems like adding those towns into a Greater Portsmouth region would make a lot of sense.

    On the other hand, the Greater Boston Beer Guide was expanded awhile back to include basically the entire eastern half of the state. That's not very helpful when I'm looking for something that's actually in Greater Boston. I like that I don't have to look individually in Lowell, Haverhill, Amesbury and so on when I'm heading north of the city, but it seems like it would make more sense to divide the current Beer Guide into Greater Boston for areas right around the city, and then maybe something like North Shore and South Shore, or something.

    I'm sure there are plenty of similar cases.

    And in areas where there may not be a single dominant beer destination, but where there are plenty of worthwhile bars, breweries and stores spread throughout a reasonable region, I think it would make sense to add a regional Beer Guide. Western Mass works well for that part of the state here, and the Stowe Beer Guide could easily become a more encompassing Northeast Vermont regional guide. I could see one for regions that are just beginning to burgeon, beer-wise, like the Merrimack Valley in NH and Mass. I'm sure other people can think of other areas that could use a comprehensive guide.

    Is there any way to recommend these, or offer to create and maintain them?
     
    barleywinefiend likes this.
  2. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Thanks for the huge post and input. Unfortunately my reply will be short ...

    As we eventually plan on rebuilding the entire Places section of the site (along with the rest of the site), making updates might be wasted effort at this time.

    That said, we'll definitely take your suggestions into consideration going forward; many of which have already been considered.

    Cheers!
     
    FrankLloydMike likes this.
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