In general, you should only add a particular vintage as a new beer in the following types of situations:

• The beer is a yearly release with a name that features an incrementing value, e.g., Black Butte XXIII and Black Butte XXIV from Deschutes Brewery.
• The beer is a yearly release featuring recipe changes each year, e.g., Allagash Fluxus 2011 and Allagash Fluxus 2012 from Allagash Brewing Company.

Otherwise, you should use the Bottle Date field to differentiate between the various releases in your cellar. Some situations in which this would be appropriate include:

• A seasonal or yearly release that is otherwise unchanged, e.g., Bigfoot from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. or Dark Lord Imperial Stout from Three Floyds Brewing
• A special yearly offering that is differentiated only by release year, e.g., Fuller's Vintage Ale from Fuller Smith & Turner PLC.

A common concern is how to properly name a beer or brewery that you are adding to the database. Unfortunately, there's no one right answer. A quick search around the web will usually yield many different permutations on a given beer or brewery's name, some including the brewery name in the beer, some omitting a "Co." from the brewery name, etc. If you're unsure about a particular name, I recommend going with whatever BeerAdvocate has recorded. That goes for style selection, too.

You may notice that I encourage the use of BeerAdvocate entry addresses for beer entries instead of recreating that kind of information on this site. I decided this was the best option as BeerAdvocate is always the first place I look if I want to know about a particular brew, and I don't believe it makes sense to reinvent the wheel. While I do maintain an internal database of beers and breweries, this is mainly for data integrity purposes (e.g., avoiding duplicates) and for future feature developments (e.g., displaying additional fields for each beer without having to collect that information at a later date).

Yes you can! For any beer or brewery record that is missing data (e.g., Style, ABV, Description), a corresponding link to populate that data will appear next to the missing field in the management area of any cellar entry. When using the inline management area on an entry, check under the Beer and Brewery tabs on the right to find this functionality.

On any cellar entry, under the Beer and Brewery tabs in the inline entry management area, use the "Report Beer" and "Report Brewery" links to submit the issue to site administration. You will be provided with the opportunity to specify the nature of the issue (e.g., misspelling, duplicate record) and, if applicable, provide any information relevant to fixing the record (e.g., a corrected beer URL).

Yes you can! Visit the My Account page and look for the Default Sort option. You can sort your cellar by either Beer (the default setting) or by Brewery.

Yes you can! You'll need to supply a CSV file and possibly make some changes to your spreadsheet prior to import, but your time to get up and running with this route should nonetheless be much quicker if you already have a large cellar. Visit the Import page (otherwise accessible from the My Account area) to get started. (Note: this functionality is only available via the desktop version of the site.)

In order to maintain table data integrity for the sorting library being used, any oustanding sorts need to be reverted prior to adding the new beer to the table.

Yes! All consumption entries and corresponding tasting notes are stored independently of your current beer entries, accessible via the Consumed Beers area. So, after moving or drinking a beer entry to the point where you have zero bottles remaining, you can safely delete that entry without losing access to any consumption entries or tasting notes created previously.

There are a couple additional organizational options available in the My Account area. The first, In Fridge Column, lets you toggle the availability of that column in your cellar, allowing you to use just the In Cellar column. The second, Location Column, adds this additional column and allows you to specify a custom storage location for each cellar entry. Note that the Location column will only be displayed if both the column is enabled and the In Fridge column is hidden.

Simply give the URL of your cellar to the desired recipient—e.g., https://cellar.beer/josh—and they will be able to access a public, non-editable version including any other options you have configured to be public facing (e.g., trade status, tasting notes, and drink by dates).

Trading Labels allow you to mark specific beers as either For Trade (FT) or In Search Of (ISO), indicating to those you share your cellar with both what you're offering and what you're looking for. They can be toggled on or off from the My Account area.

In addition to the Trading Labels toggle mentioned above, you can also toggle the following:

• Cellar Visibility: this options lets you hide your cellar from everyone but yourself
• Public Notes & Tasting Notes: this option lets you toggle the public visibility of your entry notes and tasting notes
• Public Drink By Dates: this option lets you toggle the public visibility of your entry Drink By dates, where specified

All the options listed above are available in the My Account area.

When viewing another user's cellar, clicking the green "Message" link in the upper left will allow you to chat with that user. Alternatively, you can visit the Messages area and type in the recipient's name. If a user does not have the "Message" link or does not appear in user search results, it means they have disabled messaging, a setting available to all users in the My Account area.

You can find links to change both your email address and password in the My Account area. A change of email address will require confirmation before the new address becomes active.

To recover your password, while logged out, go to the Log In area and click the link under the "Forgot your password?" heading to generate a one-use email that will provide instructions for recovering your password.

In the My Account area, use the "Export Cellar" link in the upper-right to be provided with the option to export your cellar in CSV format. (Note: this functionality is only available via the desktop version of the site.)