An open-source, creative commons beer & brewery database with an API

Michael E. Kirkpatrick ·

Hey! I’m looking for some feedback and thoughts on a brewery and beer database I cooked up. I’ve got 6,601 brewers and 70,729 beers in the database at the moment. The idea is to provide the community with brewer information including a little about the brewery, their location(s), links, and information on the beer they brew (all the pertinent info: name, style, description, ABV, IBU).

Any content added to the database is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) and is accessible via a website and API. Unlike other beer and brewer databases online, you don’t need to get approved for API access, and you don’t have to pay to remove rate limitations. The database is open and accessible to anyone.

I would love to see beer entrepreneurs leverage the database into new and exciting apps, provide beer enthusiasts with a catalog of information about the breweries they’re interested in, and researchers the opportunity to mine the vast world that is craft beer.

What do you think? You can check it out at:

https://catalog.beer

Known issues and limitations:

  • You can’t currently edit beer or brewer information
  • There’s an authenticity component where brewers can verify their information that needs additional development. See Triton Brewing as an example of a verified brewer.

All feedback is welcome: email / Twitter @mekirkpatrick