Wednesday 4 January 2012

Where I have been and where I might be going

Let's get this out of the way:  over the course of the year I shed 2.1kg.  This journey has been a lot of fun and I think I have benefitted.    I tried a number of new beers and I revisited and enjoyed several I had dismissed a long time ago.  There is nothing like putting something on record to inhibit one from ordering, say, a Rickard's Red which regrettably is often as good as it gets in Brampton.

I have had a beer or more in more than forty joints.  I have consumed beer from over one hundred and fifty brewers from over twenty countries. 

Of course I have had readers from Canada and the U.S.A but also Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, the Ukraine, India, Hungary, Indonesia, Latvia, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

What is planned for 2012?  I haven't settled on anything just yet.  At some point I will run out of new beers if I continue for a new beer a day but I do want to keep listing new finds.  One thought comes courtesy of a lady from Campbellford (home of Church Key Brewing) who gave me a book for Christmas called 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die.

The joy and the frustration of this sort of book is how very subjective it is.  I reviewed a similary themed and titled book on pop records - I could reproduce it here if there is demand - and I concluded that a number of things were included to show that the author had street cred and a number of others were there for their pop culture significance and not for their merit.

For starters I will never taste every beer listed.  Too much travel would be involved but it might be interesting to see how close I get.  I am going to think about it for a while and if thinking gets in the way of publishing there will some cramming to catch up.

I also think about going back and tidying things up, adding tags for the benefit of newcomers and maybe even photos.

Thank you for following along.  I will return very soon.

December 31, 2011

399)  Home:  Biere du Boucanier Red by Icobes B.V.B.A. of Belgium:  **;  the nose is sweet and yeasty;  notes of yeast malt and banana;

400)  Home:  Biere du Boucanier Dark Ale by B.V.B.A. of Belgium:  **;  hints of fruit;  the beers in this mixed pack are hard to rate - they are better than most but in the universe of Belgian beers they are a shade ordinary;

I kept it to myself until the end that when I hit 365, I re-set my goal to 400.