Now your fridges and sheds are hopefully filled with beer again, it’s time to discuss that other loss the bar closures left us with: social contact. Those working from home might already have discovered the joy of using teleconferencing tools for non-professional chats with co-workers as well, but where do you find your usual drinking buddies? To facilitate this, we set up a Discord chat server, aptly named Brussels Beer Babble. It has channels for some of the most popular Brussels beer bars, and for all of the Brussels breweries.
Discord?
Discord was originally designed as a way for online video gamers to communicate while playing, but its popularity quickly expanded way beyond that. These days especially, new servers are popping up every day to bring together all kinds of people who now temporarily can’t meet in real life anymore.
One of the advantages of Discord it that it runs on many different platforms (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux), and in web browsers, so you can use it on whichever device is most convenient.
Channels
Like on IRC servers in the old days—although they still exist—you’ll find different ‘channels’ on Discord servers. On the Brussels Beer Babble server we have created text channels for all the Brussels breweries we know of, and a first selection of beer bar channels. In addition, we have channels to share what you’re #drinking-now, to show off—photos are allowed—what you have #in-the-fridge, and to chat about #home-brewing. If a channel for your favourite beer bar or beery subject is missing, we’d be happy to add it upon request.
For now, there’s only one voice channel, The Virtual Bar, but if the demand is big enough, we can create some more. But after you’ve found your drinking buddies in one the bar or brewery channels, it is also possible to invite them to a private (group) chat. You can even have a video chat that way if you really miss their faces!
Join in the beer chat!
So how do you get in on the action?
- Go to Discordapp.com
- Register a new account, if you don’t have one yet
- Download the app for your platform, or stay in the browser
- Open invitation link https://discord.gg/T2v39xW (or paste it when you “Add a server”)
- Pour a beer
- Pick a channel, and start chatting!
See you all there?
