mncraft.beer is an app which provides information for Minnesota's 211 tap rooms, and allows users to track their progress in visiting them all.
In 2014, Tim and Shannon Bornholdt made a plan to visit all of the breweries in the Twin Cities. At the time, the plan was not so audacious; there were only a few dozen breweries in the area. At their peak, they had accomplished 70% of their goal.
As the craft beer revolution exploded, the goal became increasingly challenging. With more than a hundred breweries within reasonable driving distance of the Twin Cities, Tim and Shannon were having a hard time keeping track of which ones they visited.
Several months prior, as a joke, Tim and his business partner, Robert Bentley, made a goal to visit all of the Leeann Chin locations in the state as well. Because they ran a mobile app development company, they decided that printing off a paper map and crossing off locations was entirely too simple. Instead, they created an entire mobile app which let them easily track the ones they had visited.
Seeing the opportunity, Shannon suggested to her husband that he create something similar for the thousands of other craft beer enthusiasts in the region. After having a few drinks at Tin Whiskers, Tim hopped onto a domain registration website (which is normal, right?), and saw that mncraft.beer was available for purchase.
The rest is history.
The irony of it all is that to date, the Bornholdt's initial goal has not been met, mostly due to the rambunctious 1.5 year old which was born in 2016.
The Minnesota Craft Brewery Tracker is free to download and use. The app enables users to leave a "tip" to the creators through an in-app purchase. Leaving a tip disables an occasional prompt to visit the tip jar, and the money raised goes towards continually updating the app.
The Jed Mahonis Group is a mobile app consultancy based in St. Louis Park, MN. We specialize in building on-demand application platforms. We've built apps for companies as large as Great Clips, but we've built a lot of apps for start-ups and entreprenuers as well. We also specialize in playing Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64. We have yet to visit every Leeann Chin location, but we are fairly close.