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Exact beer/brewery search?

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Coupaman

12 May, 2012 06:33 PM

Is there a way to search untappd without it returning "fuzzy" results? An example of where this would be beneficial is my particular issue where I am unable to search for beers from "The Brew Company" due to the large number of matches this returns but not the brewery specifically searched for.

This is a problem when adding beers as it is impossible to associate "The Brew Company" without creating a new brewery and therefore creating duplicates. I've searched the help site to try and see if there is a way to override this behaviour but can't see any hints or tips in this area.

If there is a way to "exact" search then could someone point me in the right direction? If not then any chance this could be implemented?

Cheers

1. Support Staff 2 Posted by Greg Avola on 13 May, 2012 02:41 PM

   

   Coupaman,

   This is definitely an issue we that we are finding more and more. Our search is fuzzy for a reason - most of our search results come in that way, and as more people check-in through the night, the "fuzzy" search terms, get "fuzzier" as you imagine.

   However - it seems like your problem is when you try to attach a beer to the brewery "The Brew Company" on the the Add Beer Screen.

   Is this in the app or on the web or both?

   Thanks,
   Greg

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2. 3 Posted by Coupaman on 13 May, 2012 04:04 PM

   

   I totally understand the need for fuzzy searches and the reasoning behind them. Trust me, I am usually more than grateful for the search's forgiveness when I'm checking in my beers.

   I wanted to check-in to a beer called "Blackout Stout" brewed by "The Brew Company". I can search for "Blackout Stout" and this returns many results but none are from The Brew Company. I am then invited to create a new entry for this beer.

   However I decide instead to search for "The Brew Company" and see if the beer is listed that way as this is often quicker particularly if a brewery has a relatively small range of brews and the name of the beer alone returns a lot of fuzzy search results.

   If in this instance I simply enter "The Brew Company" then I will be presented with a long list of potential fuzzy matches, but none are from the brewery I am looking for. In this instance I then begin to add the beer.

   As you point out, I have to search for the brewery as a part of adding a beer. Now I am stuck because there is nothing I can type in the search for brewery box that will return the correct entry for The Brew Company.

   I can understand that it is a consequence of The Brew Company having a name that contains words that are highly common in a lot of brewery names and that's where the fuzzy search stops being helpful. Unable to find the brewery despite knowing it's there in Untappd somewhere I can now either continue and create a new brewery causing a duplicate in the database or I can abandon the check in and give up. As far as I'm aware this behaviour is common to the web and iOS app.

   Perhaps if the search facility also allowed us to enclose the search terms in quotes so that it looked for a particular phrase instead of fuzzy matching words? That way we could use the existing search most of the time and the phrase search if we need to.

   Phew, I've jabbered on a bit here but I hope it helps clarify the issue

   Cheers
   Neil Couper
   (Coupaman)

   (In the process of checking my facts whilst composing this reply I noticed that there are duplicates for The Brew Company already, I'll put in a merge request after I've sent this.)

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3. Support Staff 4 Posted by Greg Avola on 13 May, 2012 04:17 PM

   

   Neil,

   I think this is a typical problem that most people do - and I've seen the search results to prove this.

   Most users search by "Beer Name" or "Brewery Name". With common names, such as "Victor" by "Weyerbacher", if you search "Victor" you get all the Victory results - if you search Weyerbacher, you get tons of results but not the one you are looking for.

   The solution is search "Brewery Name + Beer Name" would return the results you are looking for.

   We can looking improve the Brewery searching on the Beer Creating Page. I can log a bug and look into this.

   Thanks for your support!
   Greg

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4. 5 Posted by Coupaman on 13 May, 2012 04:22 PM

   

   That would be a great help. Thanks for your time.

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5. Support Staff 6 Posted by Greg Avola on 04 Nov, 2012 03:02 PM

   

   I'm not sure if you have noticed - but search results are now returned by a relevance rating and not beer count. Has this improved for you?

   Thanks,
   Greg

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6. 7 Posted by Neil Couper on 24 Nov, 2012 08:47 PM

   

   Finally got to test this out and it seems to have improved things.
   Certainly can find this brewery more easily now…

   Thanks for looking into this. I'm sure it's vast improvement.

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7. Greg Avola closed this discussion on 10 Dec, 2012 02:20 PM.

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