Beverage brands
Somebody wants a pint of it tonight. Somebody else wants a case for Saturday.
Let drinkers find the bars pouring you and the shops selling you, without mixing the two lists together.
Bring your location data
CSV import, Google Sheets sync or dashboard edits.
Shape the visitor journey
Search, filters, hours, directions and custom actions.
Match your site
85+ available settings, markers and provider map styles.
What your network looks like
On-premise accounts that serve it by the glass, off-premise shops and bottle stores that sell it to take home, a taproom or two of your own, and wholesalers who serve neither public directly.
Why a generic map falls short
Drinks are the one category where the same brand is sold two completely different ways on the same street. A single mixed list of pins puts a cocktail bar next to a supermarket and answers neither question the drinker actually asked.
What visitors need to do
- Split on-premise from off-premise, because a thirsty visitor wants one of those lists and never both at once
- Say which format an account carries: draught line, keg, cans, bottles or a growler fill
- Show whether a bar has it on right now, since a guest line rotates and a permanent tap does not
- Flag the venues that serve food or take under-18s, which decides where a family goes
How Handled covers it
- Filterable tags per location for on-premise, off-premise, draught, can, bottle and growler fill
- Opening hours with a live open-now filter, which for late venues is the only filter that matters
- Featured ordering to put flagship accounts and your own taproom above the rest
- Online stockists as a separate tab for case delivery when nothing is pouring nearby
Not every beverage brands business is the same
Craft beer and taprooms
Draught accounts rotate. A guest line pouring your pale on Thursday has somebody else's on Saturday, while a permanent tap does not move for a year, and the two should not look identical on a map. Your own taproom is the single location you control completely, and it belongs above everything else in the list.
Spirits and the bars that pour them
A cocktail bar with your gin on the back bar sells drinks, not bottles, so it answers a different question from a bottle shop three doors down. Brands with a signature serve want the venues trained on it marked out, and the drinker choosing where to go tonight cares about food, late licence and whether it takes bookings.
Soft drinks in convenience
Volume moves through wholesalers, which means you hold the account with the wholesaler and not with the several hundred small shops actually selling the can. The list you can publish is the list you can verify, and it usually gets built from delivery data and field visits rather than from a trade agreement.
Coffee and roasteries
Three relationships hide under one word. Cafes that brew your beans, shops that sell retail bags to take home, and your own roastery with a counter attached. Somebody after a flat white and a home barista after a kilo of espresso are not served by the same pin, so the wholesale and retail sides have to be filterable apart.
Functional drinks in gyms, pharmacies and forecourts
Placement is in somebody else's fridge, in channels with no drinks retail habits at all. Accounts open and close on promotion cycles, hours belong to the host site, and the detail worth publishing is which format sits in that fridge: single can, multipack or the sports cap bottle.
Setting it up
1. Agree what counts as a live account
Before anything is imported, settle the rule for staying on the map. Most drinks brands land on something like a delivery in the last ninety days for off-premise and a current line for on-premise, because publishing a lapsed account is how a visitor arrives to be told nobody there has heard of you.
2. Import, then split on-premise from off-premise
Bring the accounts in from a CSV or Google Sheets, and tag every one as on-premise or off-premise before you tag anything else. That single filter is what keeps a cocktail bar and a supermarket out of the same list of results.
3. Tag the format, not just the account
Draught, cask, keg, can, bottle, growler fill: format decides whether the visit works. Somebody after a pint and somebody buying a case for Saturday both start on your map, and the format tag is what sends them to different doors.
4. Set hours, feature the flagships and publish
Late licences make open-now the most used filter on a drinks locator, so hours per venue earn their keep. Put your taproom and key accounts in featured order, then embed the widget on your where to drink page and link it from the label.
What to prepare before you publish
You do not need a perfect data system to start. A clean first list is enough to test the visitor journey, then you can keep it current from the workflow that suits your team.
- Location name and address
- Phone, website or booking link
- Categories, products or services
- Opening hours and special hours
- A map provider key
- The page where the locator will be embedded
Questions we get asked
How much does a drinks brand locator cost?
Pricing starts at $19 a month with a 7 day free trial and no card taken to start it. There is no free plan when the trial finishes. Map usage runs on your own Mapbox or Google Maps key, so the provider bills you for it directly rather than through us.
Can I keep the bars that pour my drink separate from the shops that sell it?
Yes, and it is the first tag to set. Mark every account as on-premise or off-premise, and the visitor picks the list they want. Someone after a pint tonight and someone buying a case for Saturday never see each other's results.
How do I handle alcohol age restrictions on a drinks locator?
There is no built-in age gate today. Brands that need one put it on the page around the widget, which is where their existing site-wide gate usually already sits, and use the widget's own wording settings for any required notice. An age gate inside the widget is buildable to order, but it does not exist now.
Can I show which venues have my beer on tap right now?
You can, but nothing updates it for you. A permanent line and a rotating guest line are two tags, and keeping the guest lines honest means editing them, usually through Google Sheets sync. There is no scheduled or automatic tap rotation, so most brands tag what is permanent and treat the rest as approximate.
How do I get wholesaler and distributor delivery data into the locator?
Export the account list from the wholesaler portal, decide the rule for a live account, then bring it in as a CSV or keep it in a synced sheet. There is no direct ERP or wholesaler integration, so the file is the route and the review step is what catches a lapsed account.
Can a drinker order online when nothing nearby is pouring my drink?
Yes. Online stockists and your own shop sit in a separate tab, and an empty search points there instead of ending on a blank screen. The widget links out to those sellers rather than taking a payment itself.
If you need something that is not here
Handled is small enough to build to order. If your trade needs a field, a filter or a behaviour the locator does not have yet, say so and we will tell you honestly whether it is a week away or not something we will do.