Now that you’ve purchased your ticket to Philly Beer Week Opening Tap, you’ve still got some time to kill until the big day arrives. A good (and topically-relevant) use of some of that time would be for you to acquaint yourself with the newly-launched beta of BreweryFans.com, which combines craft beer and social networking in a much more pleasant way than previous attempts made by others. Using Facebook integration, BreweryFans.com users can connect with their favorite breweries to give them feedback on their beers, send them messages, and post on the breweries’ walls. Distributors are also involved, as they can list which brews they carry. Users can search the site by beer or by distributor, as well as sign up to receive e-mail alerts when a particular beer brand is being distributed in their city. Although it’s still in the beta phase of launch, BreweryFans.com seems like it could be useful to the microbrew community, who have been relying on the internet for years: Long-running sites like RateBeer.com have proven to have staying power, as users offer opinions and recount their experiences. By getting breweries and distributors involved, BreweryFans.com might seem to be lending itself to commercial shill-ery, but most of the breweries currently involved, such as Dogfish Head, aren’t exactly corporate powerhouses, and the bonds between them and their customers tend to be a big part of what’s special to microbrew fans. It seems more appropriate to say that BreweryFans.com is attempting to move online beer fandom websites beyond a wiki. They’re still looking for people to get involved with the site while it’s still in test mode, so feel free to spend some time checking it out and letting them know what you think.