If you haven't been to Snallygaster and love great beer, you are missing out. This year, there are nearly 100 different styles of beers from 120 different breweries (including collaborations). These beers are spread across 13 different stations located in the parking lot across from Nationals Park. With this much territory to cover and all these beers to sort through, figuring out what you want to drink can be daunting. That is why I created this interactive beer finder dataviz.
The Snallygaster organizers have been kind enough to provide a list of the beers and all the associated details via a Google docs spreadsheet. I downloaded the list of beers as well as the map of the Snallygaster site. As you can see below, the list of beers combined with the map of the layout of the event, provides an opportunity to explore the world of Snallygaster beers and figure out where you want to be to get the beers you want on Saturday.
How this works
Everything in the dataviz above is interactive. You can click on a location on the Snallygaster map and see what kind of beers, their origin, their ABV, styles, and even if they are debuting in DC. When you hover over the different marks in the charts above, you will also see additional information (such as the number of breweries for each of the categories and styles). If you are someone who needs to be "the first" and always has to try something new, then you can use the "Debut?" filter (located at the top of the beer list) to choose just the beers that are debuting in DC. If you have a favorite brewery, you can find the brewery in the list at the bottom of the viz and click on the name. Then you can see where all the beers from the brewery are on the Snallygaster map.The map of the US has zoom controls that appear in the corner when you hover over the map. This way you can better zoom in to the east coast where most of the beers originated. By the way Virginia breweries (including collaborations) are bringing the most beers to the event on Saturday. However, each collaboration is treated as a unique brewery so keep that in mind as you are perusing the list and analyzing the results of your "analysis."
For those of you who might be looking for lower ABV beers (there is no shame in that whatsoever) you can use the ABV distribution chart. Not only can you click on the individual bars to view the beers with that ABV, but you can hold the ctrl key while selecting additional bars, or draw a box around the ABV bars you want to select.
As you can see there are lots of ways you can interact with this beer finder dataviz. However, it is best viewed on a monitor, laptop, or a tablet. You can try it on your smart phone, but it might be difficult to select and view the entire viz at once.
See you Saturday at Snallygaster!
