Digital is not just for huge, mainstream publishers like Conde Nast and Time Inc. Celebrator Beer News, celebrating its 24th year as the country’s oldest brewspaper in 2012, is the first beer publication available in digital flip-page technology for free. For those who have not yet had the experience of flip-page technology, it is the closest thing to holding an actual book in your hands, but with digital magic.

You can flip through pages by grabbing them with your mouse and turning them, or by simply clicking on them. If you are reading a story that continues in the back of the publication, you merely click on the “pages” icon at the bottom of the monitor (the one that looks like a little keypad), then click on the page you want to access.

If you have a super large monitor, it is easy to read the magazine in actual size. However, if you are viewing on a compact laptop, the book appears too tiny for the average person to read. But you will notice a little magnifying glass on the screen. Just a click takes you to a magnification that makes it easy to view. The little magnifying glass is a tool, much like your finger. Wherever you trace, you can easily read.

When you use the zoom feature, the page may appear a bit pixilated at first, until it loads – just like photos on Facebook when they initially appear. Since I am not a techie, I am not sure whether this is caused by the speed of the processor in my computer, the number of people online at the time, or the digital program itself. It does clear up quickly, though.

You can flip through pages with the arrow keys, or use the underlined arrows to go directly to the front or back covers. For those of us who love magazine ads as much as the editorial content, none of the layout is compromised, as they would be on normal web pages, where ads seem either intrusive or minimized as horizontal or vertical banners with little information.

Another advantageous feature of Celebrator’s digital flip-book is the pdf view of each page, which can be saved on your computer to read on a plane or while traveling as a passenger on a bus or car. If you are reading something you think a friend would enjoy, it only takes a click and a short entry of email address to send it off to them as email – or save it for yourself by printing out a hard copy.

For Celebrator, this is the second issue available in the new digital format. It can be accessed on your smartphone, iPad, or computer by going to celebrator.com and clicking on the cover or “Read Online” banner. It is also available at http://www.pyratetech.com/celebratorBDEC11Jan12/.

Tom Dalldorf, impassioned beer, wine and food enthusiast, is publisher, editor and columnist of Celebrator Beer News. His bi-monthly publication covers the beer scene in every corner of the U.S. and Canada, and touches on the international front, as well. Dalldorf, who pens Notes from the Publisher and the Hop Caen column each issue, expresses himself with intelligence and wit, and directs a well-honed team of professional writers who are the sharpest in the business, including Fred Eckhardt, Lisa Morrison, Chuck Cook,Stephen Beaumont, Jay Brooks, Jack Curtin, Dr. Fermento, and many more.

Celebrator has been generously acclaimed throughout its 24year history. In 1996, Ale & Lager Examiner listed Celebrator as NumberOne brewspaper in its Annual Readers Survey. Happy Hours.com named Celebrator as top of the line in the brewspaper category, and the Horse Brass Pub in Portland, Oregon called it the “Bible of the Brewing World.”

Cheers!