I have a penchant for starting projects because they seem neat without any real concern for whether they're viable, worthwhile, or valuable. Late last year, I started looking around at sites that featured breweries, wondering if I could do it even 1% better.
I know products exist that try to tackle this problem, and I feel like they do a decent job. That doesn't stop me from thinking I can take a swing at it, though.
And from that, Brewery Search came up from nothing and now lives on the Internet.
The goal was to build a site that tracked breweries in Washington State, where I live. About a week into the project, I discovered no difference between isolating to a single state and covering the entire country. Before I knew it, I went from 400-and-change records to over 10,000.
Not all of them are visible yet. I have a lot of work to do on the data collection front to make them useful. I keep the entire stack of Washington records around as a reminder, hoping I'll find myself hitting completion in the coming months.
I love the idea of building in public–otherwise, I'd never actually ship the thing–but that means things might get a little strange while I hammer away. For now, please pardon the dust.