The Launch of BeerPetitions.com

Another new beer website went live this week and although I get emails almost daily about new beer websites, I figured I would write about this one because (a) I haven’t written about a new beer website in awhile, (b) it was a concept that I thought actually showed promise, (c) they asked nicely, or (d) all of the above… If you answered “D”, you are correct. From the official press release,

BeerPetitions.com, a new website launched this week, aims to empower craft beer drinkers to centralize their beer demands online so that local retail establishments will know the beer brands their customers want to purchase. This web tool will change how retail establishments choose beer brands and could dramatically increase craft beer market share. BeerPetitions.com allows registered users to create an online petition for a specific beer brand to be carried at a particular retail establishment such as a bar, restaurant, or store. Members create profiles, add their signatures to petitions, and add comments to petition pages. Members also have the option to receive email alerts when new petitions are created for selected retail establishments.

The site is a tad misleading in its current form — just because a horde of craft beer fans wants a package store to carry Oskar Blues cans doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to happen if Oskar Blues doesn’t have the power to distribute to the horde’s home state in the first place — so I hope they get around to addressing that. But what it does do is help show retailers what beers their current customers do want that maybe they’re currently buying elsewhere.

For instance, I know that here in Portland you can get many of the beers of Montreal’s Dieu Du Ciel at Downeast Beverage on Commercial St. but I personally do the majority of my day-to-day beer buying at Whole Foods instead, since that’s where I get my food and it’s more convienent that way, and leave Downeast to my specialty purchases (sorry guys!). So I would love for Whole Foods to carry more of the Dieu Du Ciel line (they only have 2 of their beers right now and they’re 2 of the least interesting) and now I can create a petition saying so. And, presumably, if enough people agree and go to Whole Foods with the request, things could change for the better.

The site is also not limited to retail establishments; users can create petitions asking to see more craft beer taps at their favorite local watering holes. And it’s pretty safe to assume, I’d say, that if the site gains enough ground to make a steady impact on beer markets across the country, as craft breweries grow and look to expand, they will be able to look to BeerPetitions.com to see exactly where the demand for their product is, right down to the micro level of what stores they should stock, and go there.

So if you’re trying to convince your corner store to stock a line of Rogue beers like the big liquor store across town does, or you want your neighborhood dive to add a Sierra Nevada tap next to the overused PBR keg, and you think a couple hundred of your closest friends would agree, check out BeerPetitions.com!