Out with the old, in with the new… Beer Releases

It’s simple. The world has changed since we started the Washington Beer Blog back in October of 2009. We recently made a command decision and finally changed something here on the blog. Those of you paying close attention might notice that the navigation tab for Pubs and Shops is gone. It has been replaced with Beer Releases. Perhaps you’re wondering why we removed our listing of good beer bars and bottleshops.

Thankfully, there are too many bars serving too much good beer. It’s a first-world beer problem. Seriously, we have come so far so fast that even the little Italian restaurant up the street serves great beer on tap. What used to be our criteria for a great beer bar—a bar offering a dozen or more good, preferably local, beers on tap—is now nothing special.

Sure, we could provide a list of our “favorite beer bars” or “the best beer bars,” but that kind of subjective endeavor is better suited for a post and not a dedicated page. Maybe some day we’ll conduct a reader poll.

It’s like maintaining a map of every place you can find a slot machine in Vegas. It’s something of a fool’s errand.

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It’s not too different for bottleshops. Once we realized that a mini-mart deserved to be on the list, we began to question the need for the list. Rewind the clock five years and you were hard-pressed to find a selection of good beers at even the fanciest grocery stores.  Things have changed. Don’t be sad. This is what we always wanted.

You should still shop for beer at bottleshops where the staff knows about beer and the selection is vast, and ultimately the decision about what’s on the shelf is made by a real beer geek seeking to provide you with the best selection. We very much encourage you to continue patronizing your local, privately owned bottleshops. Those businesses are a very important part of our local beer community.

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One last thing: you are being watched. According to our web stats, just about nobody was visiting the old Pubs and Shops page. The lack of interest was further evidence of its obsolescence. The old pubs and shops page exists in perpetuity here: https://washingtonbeerblog.com/pubs-shops/

NEW, New Beer Page

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We have now introduced a page that lists beer release information: Beer Releases. Not only does it feature new beers, but also annual releases, and anything related. For instance, if a brewery decides its going to start packaging a particular beer in sixpacks, we’ll list it on the Beer Releases page. Of course we can only share the information we have and encourage breweries around the Northwest to send us release information.

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