Hunting Beer With BreweryMap

Here's another app that will allow you to use your iPhone to find new breweries on your trips. BreweryMap provides an interface to an online web site of the same name. The 99¢ app was created by the folks at Pint Labs. You can search for breweries by location or brewery name. The screenshot at the right shows hits on the two brewpubs in the Fredericksburg area, Blue & Gray and Battlefield. Selecting a brewery will bring up a page with more information such has website, business hours, address and phone, as well as a list of the brewery's beers. Searching by brewery name will bring up a list of similar names to from which to narrow. As expected the mapping function will give directions to the brewery from your current location.

There's also a function that allows you to find the breweries along your route when traveling. Entering your starting point and destination will give you a list of breweries you'll passing by. 

The creators claim the BreweryMap database contains over 3,100 breweries and more than 10,500 beers. Unfortunately our two local breweries only listed one beer each. However, the app uses the data maintained at BreweryDB.com. By heading over to BreweryDB.com beer fans can update the database used by BreweryMap. The same information is available from your computer at BreweryMap.com if you want to do some planning before you hit the road. With the contributions of craft beer fans, the database should get more complete over time.

The brewery database seems to current, even if the beer lists are limited. Even fairly new Virginia breweries such as Corcoran and Hardywood Park are represented. I think I'll keep this app on my phone for those times when I find myself in a new area and looking for a new brewery to visit.