I am enjoying watching the results of a Twitter-based information gathering effort under the hash tag #BeerEh. What seems to be going on is a wide-raging study into the Great White North's beer consumer mindset and it is playing out in a number of ways. For example, what might be originally thought as a curse when the hash tag was used to find out where the beer cost a lot turned out to be a claim to fame when local data is revealed. Pub Italia in Ottawa is quite happy to be identified as the home of the most expensive beer in Ottawa - as well as where you can find a menu of 200 other great beers. And you now know where to get a can of 50 for $2.50 in Toronto. In another use of #BeerEh, folks were asked to identify their favorite brew. I don't see a result on that survey - but, really, was that ever the point?

Run by the Huffington Post's new Canadian branch plant, it is a pretty smart marketing tool to quickly ingratiate themselves into the national summer psyche. It's not everywhere in the land yet but, if they churn the opportunity enough, they may actually come up with an interesting body of data that frames our national relationship with beer in an incredibly cheap way.