A conglomeration of beer distributors, led by Fort Worth-based Ben E. Keith Beverage, the nation’s third-largest beer wholesaler, has formed to create GreatBrewers.com, a website aimed at education about beer, as well as user reviews and a beer finder.

In the past decade, a thriving beer culture has blossomed in America, which now boasts the most stylistically diverse lineup of beers on earth. But with such great variety comes the inherent challenge of consumer education, particularly at the point of purchase. Responding to this challenge, pioneering beverage wholesalers have joined forces to provide brewers with a central marketing platform, deemed Great Brewers. The mission of Great Brewers is to bridge the gap between the world’s great brewers and the consumers who enjoy their products, with a paramount focus on education and on enhancing beer distribution practices through the sharing of information.

The idea behind it is great, and being run by distributors, it should be able to tell us where to go to find the beer we want. I have only spent a few moments going around the site, and it seems you have to register to use a handful of the features, such as the Great Beer Test (I scored a pitiful 55%). Also, if distributors near you are not members, then the beer finder feature may have troubles finding what you want. It is also a fairly busy website that can be difficult to navigate and do what you want, but it has only been going for a few weeks now and hopefully as time passes it will become more user friendly.

They also released a new Iphone app called BeerCloud, which is designed to help people pair, locate, and learn about beer. Best of luck to these folks in their venture and I hope it becomes a great resource for beer lovers across the states.

Check out the full article at Houston Press.