What's On Tap, Seal Beach, CA - Beachwood BBQ

by Mike Pomranz, Posted Jan 28th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Photo: Matthew Wholderfield, Flickr.

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

Here's one to file under "Why doesn't every beer bar in America do that."

Seal Beach, California's much heralded Beachwood BBQ offers a live HopCam, offering prospective patrons a chance to peek at their big draft beer board anytime via the bar's Web site.

In the past, What's On Tap has heaped praise upon bars that keep their beer list current online, but eventually most establishments fall victim to the number one reason why Web sites go out of date: laziness. It ain't easy typing those beers up and publishing them on the Internet for all to see, especially for less Web-savvy business owners. Plus, any good owner knows having a current list up on the wall in person is top priority. Otherwise, customers wouldn't know what's available to order.

Well, knowing they'd always keep their in-house board updated, Beachwood BBQ decided to just aim a constantly updating Webcam right at that sucker, essentially allowing people to pop on in whenever they like to get the most recent list of what's on tap.

Beachwood BBQ owner Gabriel Gordon says that, as far as he knows, he was the first to ever create the HopCam when they installed it two years ago. "We're a superbusy restaurant. We don't keep permanent handles; we rotate our kegs regularly," he told us. "Keeping up was next to impossible, so we wanted a creative solution for us to update the Web site."

Creative solution found, and without involving additional work for the staff -- well, except for the tech-friendly guy who set the whole system up in the first place. Drinkers everywhere should be as lucky as those down in Seal Beach.

Check out what Beachwood BBQ had on draft at 8:10 p.m. Wednesday evening, then shoot on over to the HopCam right now to see if anything has changed.