I met Will Stephens for a beer last week in a pub in Williamsburg (I can’t remember what it was - very hoppy) to find out more about Beer Menus - a very cool beer, bar and map mashup covering Manhattan and Brooklyn. Will had a terrific story to tell about the new service. It launched in March this year and now carries details of nearly 300 venues/beer menus, and 1,514 individual types of beer. It’s a labour of love, but it also addresses a genuine business need: people who run bars very strong beer-dens don’t want to run websites on the whole. In many ways, the bit that most impressed was the way in which they’ve built the service so that people who run bars can keep the menus (including prices) up to date with little or no extra effort.

Will started the site with his brother and the story of two boys creating Beer Menus has a ring of Bo and Luke Duke about it - in a good way. I love brother stories - and was out there working with mine, so it seemed like a sign. But that wasn’t all. The project that took us to NYC has been using this bar called Spuyten Duyvil as a placeholder, and I was astonished when Will told me it was just round the corner. Half an hour later I was beginning to understand why people working in such close proximity to *very* strong beers need very simple ways of updating their websites. I was two drinks in to an evening but they were both the same strength as barley wine or super-strength lager. It was great fun, but I think I’ll sick to my pilsener shandies ta.

Anyway - it was ace to meet them. BeerMenus is built in Ruby on Rails and these guys gave done a really great job. It’s grown quickly and seems eminently scalable. What I like about it most is the way they’ve done fewer things really well.