Cookies
What BeerHQ keeps in your browser
Two values in local storage — your answer to the age question and your answer about analytics. Google’s cookies only if you say yes.
The complete list
| Name | Kind | What it holds | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
beerhq.age-confirmation | Local storage | Whether you said you were 18 or over, the date you said it, and a format version number (currently 1). No date of birth, no identifier. | 365 days |
beerhq.analytics-consent | Local storage | Whether you said BeerHQ may measure how the site is used, the date you said it, and a format version number (currently 1). Set whichever way you answer, so that a no is remembered and you are not asked again. | 182 days |
_ga, _ga_* | Cookie (Google) | Google Analytics’ own identifiers, set by its script. Present only if you answered yes: until then the script is never loaded, so there is nothing to set them. | Up to 2 years, set by Google |
That is the whole list. The first two are first-party, stay in your browser and are never sent anywhere; clearing site data for BeerHQ removes them, after which both questions are asked again. The third is Google’s and exists only while you are letting BeerHQ measure the site.
Local storage rather than a cookie for a reason: a cookie is transmitted with every request to the server, and there is no reason for the server to know the answer. Keeping it in local storage means it genuinely never leaves the browser.
If you say yes, what is recorded
Which pages are read, and a small number of things you do with the tools: that a search ran and whether it found anything, that a finder reached a recommendation, that a calculator was used, and whether a pairing was reached from a food page or a beer page. Six kinds of event in total, listed and justified one by one in privacy.
Not what you typed. BeerHQ records that a search happened and what kind of thing came top — never the words. A search box is where people type unpredictable things, and a log of real queries is personal data collected by accident.
The measurements go to two places: HEKNO Analytics, which is BeerHQ’s own first-party service, and Google Analytics. Fewer kinds of event go to Google than to the first-party one. How often BeerHQ refuses a question on safety grounds, for instance, is a count it keeps for itself and does not hand to anyone else.
What BeerHQ does not do
No advertising identifiers, no fingerprinting, no cross-site tracking, no profile of you, and no attempt to work out who you are. Nothing is sold or shared for advertising. If you have not answered the analytics question, or answered no, nothing is transmitted at all — not to Google and not to BeerHQ’s own service.
Your age answer is not analytics consent and is never treated as such. They are separate questions with separate answers stored under separate names, which is why there are two rows in the table above rather than one.
You can change your analytics answer at any time using the control at the foot of every page. Withdrawing is one click, in the same place, and costs no more than granting.