Beta invites for the the revamped Beer Cellar—might as well call it version 2.0—are going out this evening! I'm really excited to get this new work out there as it's a vast improvement over the current state of the application, but I'd like the help of any users who are willing in testing things before they go live. Ideally, we'll be able to work out any remaining kinks before deploying the new site to the entire userbase.

Some details follow, including info on how to receive an invite at the bottom.

• The beta site is being hosted indepent of the live site so as not to interfere with normal site usage during the testing period. It will utilize a duplicate of the live database, but no live data will be affected—the beta environment is sandboxed.
• While the entire beta site is up for grabs testing-wise, in particular I'm hoping for testers to focus most on a few specific areas:
  • Cellar Interface: the main cellar interface was rewritten from scratch and can now be managed entirely ascynchronously, meaning no more full-page reloads when adding new entries or working with existing ones. I've done a lot of testing here, but I wouldn't be surprised if users uncovered a bug or three.
  • Data Integrity: related to the main cellar interface, I'd like for testers to make sure those changes they make are being accurately reflected and maintained across uses. Things like beer/brewery/unique totals, in fridge and in cellar counts, etc.
  • Messages: this is a brand new feature allowing users to have threaded conversations with others on the site. It's a relatively self-contained feature, but some testing would nonetheless be useful.
  • CSV Import: while the underlying matching logic hasn't changed much, the Import interface was also rewritten using the new Add Entry flow. And thanks to improved beer/brewery searching with Elasticsearch, the final Fix Import stage can move a lot more quickly.
• Some other new features to look out for and test:
  • A Drink By date can now be set for any beer entry, with a corresponding days remaining status displayed in each row
  • The Add Entry flow has been revamped so that you can still browse your cellar in the background when making an addition
  • Default Sort can now be set to Brewery instead of Beer, in the My Account area
  • There are additional My Account settings as well, including: an In Fridge toggle, a Drink By and Tasting Note public visibility toggle, and a toggle to enable or disable Messaging

With those testing caveats in mind, if you're interested in helping test version 2.0 of The Beer Cellar, I'd greatly appreciate it! You can either email me at josh@beercellar.me (please hit me up from your Beer Cellar address), or reply with your email address at @BeerCellarMe. You'll receive a response from me with further details.

Thanks in advance to all willing to help out, and for everyone else, I'm hoping to launch version 2.0 within the next couple weeks. Stay tuned.