Nine Bar-Mapping Sites: Happy Hours, Ratings, and Beer
26 Comments Published by Joel October 12th, 2006 in Beer, Booze, Destinations. Share ThisYesterday’s Digg of our post on Unthirsty.com generated not just choice comments like “Dethrone ur own span blog spamer,” but also a considerable number of alternative sites with the same idea: combining Google Maps with bar locations to plot Happy Hours, good deals, and—well—bars.
Here, to your edification and satisfaction, are some of the other maps and boozing mashups available to you online. If we by chance missed any major players, please let us know in the comments.
• Name: Mappy Hour
• Locations: Worldwide (or so it appears)
• User Submissions: Yes
• Mobile Version: No
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: There is a text field into which specials information can be input, but there is not a way to sort by specific specials.
• User Ratings: Yes
• URL: Mappyhour.com
Even more options after the jump.
• Name: Unthirsty
• Locations: Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; New York, New York
• User Submissions: Yes
• Mobile Version: Yes
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: Food, Drink (Happy Hours), Patio/Outdoor Seating, Wi-Fi
• User Ratings: Yes
• URL: Unthirsty
• Name: Beer Hunter
• Locations: Ontario
• User Submissions: Yes, via email
• Mobile Version: No
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: Sorts by LCBOs, major chain stores, and independent micro-breweries and retail stores.
• User Ratings: No
• URL: Beerhunter.ca
• Name: Cheaper Drinker
• Locations: Minneapolis, Duluth
• User Submissions: Yes
• Mobile Version: No
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: Drink and food specials, sorted by day.
• User Ratings: No
• URL: CheaperDrinker.com
• Name: Drink Guru
• Locations: Boston, New York, Seattle, DC (Chicago, Houston, LA, and San Francisco coming soon)
• User Submissions: Yes (It’s a wiki.)
• Mobile Version: No (But it’s mostly text.)
• GMaps Integration: No
• Specials/Sorting: Sorting by neighborhood is a nice touch.
• User Ratings: Yes
• URL: DrinkGuru.com
• Name: Boston Beer Map
• Locations: Boston
• User Submissions: Yes (via email)
• Mobile Version: No
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: Not much in the way of special information, but there is a pubcrawl mapping tool.
• User Ratings: No
• URL: BostonBarMap.com
• Name: Drink Deal
• Locations: New York City
• User Submissions: Yes
• Mobile Version: No
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: Excellent filters built into their GMaps tool, with filters for neighborhood (mostly Manhattan, though), beer, wine, liquor, food, entertainment, and Happy Hours, as well as subtypes like “micro-brews” and “All-U-Can-Drink.”
• User Ratings: Yes
• URL: DrinkDeal.com
Editor’s Note: DrinkDeal.com has a ton of great information, but really needs to overhaul their site design and user interface. It’s pretty fugly. Oh, and add Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods while you’re at it.
• Name: Where 2 Match
• Locations: Seattle
• User Submissions: Yes
• Mobile Version: Yes (SMS or email)
• GMaps Integration: Yes
• Specials/Sorting: A tag-based system allows pretty much any type of meta-data sorting available, including events, deals, and more nebulous selections like “nice” and “not gay.” Not just bars, either, but coffee shops and restaurants. A Dodgeball-like friends system is there, too.
• User Ratings: Yes
• URL: Where2Match.com
• Name: Beerfly
• Locations: Worldwide (Heavy on the US)
• User Submissions: Yes
• Mobile Version: No (Mostly text.)
• GMaps Integration: Yes (Basic address finding only.)
• Specials/Sorting: Sort by bar, brewpub, homebrew shop, etc., as well as extensive ranking system.
• User Ratings: Yes. (Lord yes. Tons of user-submitted reviews, as well.)
• URL: BeerAdvocate.com/beerfly
Editor’s Note: Beerfly, with its knowledgeable user base, would probably be the ultimate bar-finding tool for beer snobs, if only they’d incorporate some of the time-specific deals and specials features of sites like DrinkDeal.com.
26 Responses to “Nine Bar-Mapping Sites: Happy Hours, Ratings, and Beer”
- 1 Trackback on Oct 12th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
- 2 Trackback on Oct 13th, 2006 at 7:31 am
- 3 Trackback on Oct 13th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
- 4 Pingback on Feb 22nd, 2007 at 6:44 pm
- 5 Pingback on Mar 9th, 2007 at 9:57 am
- 6 Pingback on Mar 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
- 7 Pingback on Mar 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
- 8 Pingback on Mar 8th, 2009 at 4:59 am
- 9 Pingback on Mar 8th, 2009 at 6:07 am
- 10 Pingback on Mar 9th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Not bars per se, but along the same lines are also http://beermapping.com/ and http://www.coastr.com/ .
Unthirsty has many more locations than the ones listed. User submissions will work anywhere Google Maps covers (in the US, that is). Just FYI.
You can try http://www.yelp.com/, click on a city at the top, click Maptastic, select Nightlight, select Bars, and drag the map around. You can then change the category on the left to spot nearby restaurants, karaoke, etc. :)
-danny
I just finished another new site – http://www.barhoppa.com – totally driven by user submissions.
If you live in baltimore, here is an up & comer.
http://www.barbeerian.com
Done blog-blogstyle where you can search by days of the week, neighborhood, or by tags like bloody mary’s, food, brunch, etc.
Map integration coming soon.
Where is beermapping.com ?
Hey,
Thanks for including our site, http://www.cheaperdrinker.com on your list here. I just wanted to let everyone know that we released a graphical overhaul of the site last night so it doesn’t look quite like it does in the screenshot anymore.
We are working on expanding to more cities so if you’d like to see us in your city let me know.
-Mike
mik[remove]ez@chea[remove]perdrinker.com
Dallas, Texas has a new one with over 800 specials,
http://www.texasgigs.com/drinkspecials/map/
The link for http://beeradvocate.com/beerfly is mispelled.
Nice list. Thought I should mention our site as well: http://urbandrinks.com
It’s for Portland, OR only right now.
Regards,
Bryan
Thanks for mentioning Beer Advocate Joel, I love that site. They also have great listings on where you can buy beers too, very useful if you’re playing Beer Hunter in a strange city.
Also, if you live in Madison, WI you should check out http://www.specialbar.com because we have up to date bar specials on the bars downtown and we are growing fast!
Wow, i had no idea there were so many! great minds think alike, right? good work everyone! now… where to meet and get a brew?
p.s. – Mappyhour has a mobile feature now. very simple and useful to me, anyway! yay for cell phones geeks.
Also check out http://www.dc4me.com for the DC metro area –
you can filter by type of place, there’s a happy hour database, and some more stuff they are adding
Omitting http://www.stumblingdonkey.com makes the baby donkey cry.
Heres another one, check out http://www.yourbarguide.com
It currently features New York and Philadelphia Bars, and does a Yahoo Maps integration for bar mapping. The site differentiates itself a bit by not focusing on the maps, but focuses more on people and the social networking aspect.