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The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. You can find more information on The Session on Brookston Beer Bulletin.

This time around, Gail Ann Williams of Beer by BART wants to talk about "New England, Vermont-inspired, Northeastern, Hazy, Juicy or whatever you like to call these low-bitterness, hop flavorful beers" and that's a subject that interests us here at Kaedrin, so here goes.

Of course, I've already said my piece on Northeast IPAs and Milkshake Beer (in addition to reviewing lots and lots and lots and lots of them). Indeed, I've just completed a quick, day-long tour through Vermont in order to acquire various Northeast IPAs (and saisons, and stouts, and lagers, and everything else, but NEIPA is clearly the driver), the sixth such incursion in the past five years. Here's some Hill Farmstead Walden from the latest sorty:

Since I've already opined on the subject, I shall try not to repeat myself too much. The short story, in my mind, is that the entire trend is driven by yeast. This harkens back to the days of Greg Noonan and the Vermont Pub & Brewery, where he pioneered the use of the fabled Conan yeast. An English strain, it tends to accentuate the citrusy character of hops, lending a distinctly "juicy" feel to the resulting beer. Yes, the beer tends to be a little hazier (ok, sometimes a lot hazier or downright cloudy), but that's a red herring. You can make super hazy IPAs with a clean American Ale yeast strain, but that won't capture the Northeast feel. Of course, not everyone uses Conan, but when you look into the Hill Farmsteads and Tired Hands of the world, you find some sort of English strain of yeast that accentuates that juicy character. (Again, more detail in my previous post on the subject.)

Part of the reason I attribute this to yeast (other than it actually being the most important, defining difference between NEIPA and traditional or West Coast IPAs!) is that when I finally got my greedy biscuit snatchers on some "Vermont Ale" yeast, I basically took an old IPA recipe and made the same thing (it ended up having slightly higher ABV and slightly less IBUs) but with different yeast and I was shocked at how different the resulting beer was. Yes, again, it was cloudy, but all my homebrew is relatively cloudy. The flavor was light years away from the original brew (which was a nice, solid little West Coast style IPA). Up next, I'm probably going to try a similar recipe, but using the easier to find Wyeast 1318 London Ale III strain (rumored to be close to what local Kaedrin favorite Tired Hands uses).

I could keep going, but I'd just be repeating myself, so let's give a quick whirl to the questions Gail posed:

The encounter: Do you remember your first NEIPA - if so, what was that like? Details, please. And how has your perception of the style changed over time?

I didn't know it at the time, but it was during a Philly Beer Week event with Hill Farmstead. My first was their What is Enlightenment? but I guess that's technically an APA, so let's go with Abner, which was the true revelation of the day. Of course, at the time, I didn't really know exactly how to describe how it was different, I just knew that it was delicious. It was actually during that event that I learned of Tired Hands, our local purveyor of NEIPA, and not long after that, I started going regularly (their lack of regular, staple beers means that I've had literally hundreds of different NEIPAs from them). Shortly after that, I got my claws on some Heady Topper, and I was hooked. I've been in love with the style ever since, and I've gotten better at being able to describe, distinguish, and differentiate NEIPA from regular IPA...

Or the name game: What style name do you prefer to describe the trend ... why choose that one, and why are the other names unworthy or short-sighted? Does "IPA" still apply in a way that's helpful to drinkers?

I tend to go with Northeast IPA, but I'm not too picky and most of the other names work. Ultimately, though, they're still IPAs. I don't think that we absolutely need a new BJCP style or something (though perhaps easing some of the restrictions on clarity and IBU might be in order).

Or the crusade: Testify! Exactly why do you love or hate these beers? How you could explain your stance to somebody who disagrees with you. Could you/ how would you convert them to your point of view?

I love these beers because they're delicious! Is there any other real reason? Of course, there's no accounting for taste. If you don't like them, more power to you (and please lay off, these things tend to be in short supply, so fewer drinkers translates to better/easier availability... but of course, I'm not holding my breath on that count.)

Or setting standards and defining flaws: What makes a classic example of the style?

I've already explained this a little above, but it basically amounts to pale malt (with much less in the way of crystal than a lot of IPAs, but other adjuncts like oats, rye, and wheat often in the mix), copious amounts of newfangled "flavor" hops (i.e. mostly American citrus and pine bombs, but also NZ and Australian hops, but these days, even Germany is starting to jump on the bandwagon - it's the citrus notes that are probably most important), and of course, the all-important yeast. Note that "cloudiness" is not an absolute requirement. I've had some of these that are no cloudier than an equivalent unfiltered West Coast IPA. Of course, I've had others that literally look like orange juice or chicken broth, but again, not an absolute requirement. Bitterness tends to be lower, but it doesn't need to be (I suspect the juicy character leads to a sweeter perception no matter what the IBU). Milkshake IPA should include lactose. Flaws tend to be in the mouthfeel (some can get excessively grainy) and it's worth noting that these beers often don't last - they sorta require drinking as fresh as possible.

Alright, so I could probably go on and on about this stuff, but the short story is that I like these beers a lot, and I hope they continue to be a thing.

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. You can find more information on The Session on Brookston Beer Bulletin.

This time around, Mark Lindner SMaSH! No, he's not the Hulk, he's talking about "single malt and single hop" beers. Frankly, this is not a topic I'm particularly well versed in, so I'll just vamp on some of his questions:

Are they trendy? When would they be considered to be trendy? Have you seen/had a variant (x-infused, fruit, ...) single malt and single hop beer? More than one?

This does appear to be trendy amongst a relatively small segement of homebrewers, but I wouldn't peg it as a more general beer trend. I've apparently had a couple of these without even realizing it, which says something. It feels like a trend requires people to be seeking out these beers because they are SMaSH, which isn't something I see much of...

What purpose do SMaSH beers fill? For you, personally, and/or generally. Do they offer anything to drinkers, especially non-brewing drinkers?

There are four main ingredients of beer (water, barley, hops, yeast), so strictly controlling two of them reduces the variables, making it an interesting experiment, especially when part of a series. This can go multiple directions, highlighting a particular malt, hop, or even yeast or water, depending on what you vary from batch to batch. This does sorta depend on having a series of SMaSH beers to compare, but comparative drinking is something I enjoy and can be illuminating for novices or experienced lushes alike.

Do they fill a niche in any beer style space? One that matters to you? Are they a "style," however you define that?

The great thing about niches is that you can never have too many, so even if I doubt that this will break out into the mainstream, this has a place (again, as mentioned above, doing a series of these could be illuminating). This isn't really a "style" unto itself though, as evidenced by the fact that you can find wildly divergent SMaSH profiles out there (then again, it's not like some established styles are particularly coherent - I'm looking at you, saison!)

Have you ever had an excellent one? As a SMaSH beer or as a beer, period.

I've only had a handful (that I know of) and they've been decent enough, though I can't think of anything that really melted my face. That being said, I'd be willing to bet I had a great one that I didn't even realize was SMaSH...

Do you brew them?

I have never brewed a SMaSH beer. I wouldn't rule out the possibility and I like the idea of working within restraints, but at the same time, I don't brew often enough to really get the most out of the idea.

Are there any styles besides pale ale/IPA that can be achieved via a single malt and single hop beer? (How about achieved versus done quite well.)

Absolutely! You could achieve this sort of thing with various lager styles (maybe a Kolsh?) or Belgian styles. In fact, as mentioned above, I'm virtually certain that I have had SMaSH beers that would fall under those styles that simply don't advertise the simplicity of their recipes (or that weren't made with SMaSH in mind, but nonetheless qualify as SMaSH anyway).

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. You can find more information on The Session on Brookston Beer Bulletin.

This time around, Josh Weikert wants to know: Is the Internet Helping or Hurting Craft Beer? He suggests a list of topics which I'll just use as a template. In short, technology and the internet is a double edged sword and any discussion of such is bound to resolve into a series of tradeoffs. Human beings don't so much solve problems as they exchange one set of problems for another in the hopes that the new set is more favorable than the old. I suspect you'll see such tradeoffs play a role in each topic below.

Marketing beer in the internet age

Social media has to be a boon to a small brewery operation, allowing breweries to connect with drinkers and advertise new offerings or events with relative ease and on the cheap. On the other hand, beer nerds are fickle and marketing can rub people the wrong way, especially when it gets gimmicky. It's great to be connected to the community, but it can be difficult to be on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism due to a trivial mistake (let alone a geniune mishap). As long as you're willing to engage and get better, this usually works out, but it can be difficult.

The astounding influence of beer bloggers to make or break breweries (just kidding, but seriously, what's the effect of all of this quasi-journalistic beer commentary on the drinking and brewing public?)

With the dozens of readers I have (dozens, I tell you!), my influence is certainly formidable and I sometimes struggle with the power I have to make or break a brewery. In the words of Ben Parker, "with great power comes great responsibility." On the other hand, I'm pretty sure about half of my visitors are bots and search engines, so there is that. Obviously, I'm joking here (uh, not about the visitors, sadly), but the idea of quasi-journalistic beer commentary being done at the grassroots level clearly has some influence on our community.

How are beer reviews (expert and mass-market) affecting what gets brewed and drank?

As someone who reviews a lot of beer and has dozens (dozens!) of readers, I feel confident in saying that beer reviews have a low impact. Personally, I find a lot more benefit in actually writing a review than I do in reading others. Trying to put into words what I smell/taste/feel about a beer has been a good learning experience for me, but that doesn't exactly make it very interesting to read (especially if you've never had the beer in question before). On the other hand, grappling with this sort of thing does make it a little easier to decode other reviews, cut through the flowery or absurd descriptors, see mistakes for what they are, and get a pretty good idea of what you'll get from a beer. Since this post is turning into a wall of text, let's do a quickie:

Barrel-aged English style barleywine, rich caramel, light barrel character, too much carbonation. More boring details below*.

Aggregate beer ratings are another matter and probably do probably have a moderate impact and give a nice at-a-glance overview of the general feeling of the community. It's most useful at the extremes (i.e. high number of ratings along with a very low or very high score) and obviously there are other caveats that must be considered (locals tend to be more forgiving, rarity has more of an impact than it probably should, etc...), but it can be a useful way to get a quick read on a beer, even if it shouldn't be your absolute guidance.

Are beer apps for tracking and rating overly-"gamifying" beer (or does that make drinkers more adventurous)?

Tickers gonna tick, as evidenced by the fact that they were doing so well before Untappd and other similar apps. Those outliers aside, while I think that a lot of people do patronize beer tracking apps and while they may flirt with the gamification aspects of those apps, I think their usage ultimately boils down to a pragmatic desire: in a world with 5300 breweries in the US alone, I want to know if I've had something before or not. I suspect this drives app usage more than badges or other gamification elements. I'm sure I went a little out of my way for certain badges back when I first downloaded Untappd, but I can't think of any time in the past 4 or 5 years that I did so...

Just how fast do aleholes on message boards and elsewhere turn off prospective craft beer enthusiasts?

This is a tricky one. I suspect these "aleholes" impact craft beer adoption less than they impact those specific message boards (or Facebook groups or whatever). Every community is different, but honestly I feel like the more mainstream ones are more of a turnoff because the folks on them aren't used to the tenor of interacting online.

The internet is a low-trust environment. But I've been around long enough to see different waves of people adjust to this state. When I was first online (early 1990s), no one trusted anyone, everyone was using pseudonyms, there were warnings galore about dangerous predators and the like. With each successive leap that the internet makes, there is an influx of people that just don't get it yet. BBS users went through this a bit. AOL and email caused a few of these in the early days too. Widespread broadband caused some of it. Message boards and blogs went through their own growing pains.

Nowadays, a lot of this is driven by social media. We've gotten great at breaking down barriers to entry and there's been this push towards using "real names" and verified users in the past decade as well. All of this means that there are lots of people who aren't used to having their statements scrutinized or haven't encountered a really good troll (as in, like, effectiveness, not "good" as in a moral statement, obvs) before. It doesn't help that a lot of platforms encourage lower wordcounts, which provides lots of opportunity for misinterpretation. Twitter is especially bad at this sort of thing.

I think TalkBeer, BeerAdvocate, and RateBeer all strike a decent enough balance. But I belong to a few groups on Facebook that are orders of magnitude larger than those specialized communities, and the tenor there, while mostly positive, can spiral out of control when someone has a meltdown (a recent example involved people who, for some ungodly reason, love to post chugging videos. It evolved into this weird callout culture that started to really rankle other members, and one dude in particular started harassing people, which then escalated. Eventually, he was kicked out and started his own chugging group that is super exclusive and I guess more power to him, but it didn't need to be anywhere near as acrimonious as it was.) Also, you know, fake news.

Time will pass, people will identify some of these issues as damage and find ways to route around them. It's happened before and it will happen again. This goes for pretty much all of the preceding questions, actually. As mentioned above, we never really solve problems. We just exchange one set for another. Funnily enough, what didn't work in the past might work now, and vice versa. The internet is a living platform, there's no one answer.

* Detailed review to demonstrate how awful tasting notes are:

Against The Grain London Balling - Pours a cloudy brown color with amber highlights and a solid finger of off-white head. Smells of rich malt, some citrus, vanilla and oak. Taste starts off sweet, rich caramel, with a light bourbon, oak, and vanilla character emerging in middle with a boozy finish. Supposed to be aged in Angel's Envy barrels, and the bourbon character is certainly there, but not super heavy. Mouthfeel is highly carbonated, surprisingly so, almost effervescent, not enough to completely sink it, but enough to bring it down a grade. Medium to full bodied, and a little boozy heat. Overall, it's really quite solid, but that carbonation is a bit too much. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 12.5% ABV bottled (12 ounces). Drank out of a snifter on 4/30/17.

See? The worst.

I'm not one of those capsaicin-addicted thrill-seekers hunting down obscure pepper-walez like the Merciless Pepper of Quetzalacatenango ("...grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum.") but I do enjoy spicy food and hot sauces. As per usual, you should remember that this is a beer blog and I am the worst, so you'll need to take my ramblings with the appropriate boulder of salt. Or not. I'm not your mother.

Anyway, these are at least beer-adjacent hot sauces, so there is that. Choosing a favorite hot sauce is probably about as difficult as choosing a favorite beer (i.e. impossible), as different offerings fill different needs. I always have at least 3 or 4 different hot sauces on hand, sometimes more. Frank's Red Hot is, of course, a constant and utterly necessary for wings (I generally don't mind sampling another flavor of wing, but I'm invariably let down by the experience and regret not ordering the regular ol' buffalo wing), but it's nice to have some differing flavor profiles or textures around too. Before we get to the hot sauce, I wanted to give a shout out to Serious Eats' recent Top 30 Hot Sauce list, which is a pretty fantastic resource that lead me to our first selection...

BliS Blast is up first. BLiS (an acronym for Because Life is Short) is most famous for making a bourbon barrel aged maple syrup (that is nice, but not as great as the Pappy aged one I reviewed last week), but they make a whole line of barrel aged goodies, like this hot sauce, comprised of chipotle, arbol and cayenne chilies aged for up to a year in barrels that have previously been used to age bourbon, maple syrup, and Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS). The order of the aging is unclear to me, and there are a couple of possibilities. If the various aging processes occurred in the order listed, I think the resulting beer would have actually been Canadian Breakfast Stout (regular KBS doesn't have the maple syrup component, but CBS does). Or perhaps separate bourbon barrels, some having aged syrup and some having aged KBS are blended together in the end. Whatever the case, the result is pretty great.

Pours a dark, grainy, browninsh red color. Smells complex, sweet, but almost smokey, maybe coffee, lots of cayenne peppers, chipotle comes out as well, and yes, relatively sweet too. Taste follows the nose, sweet with a smokey, almost roasty character and a light spice heat. Mouthfeel is rich and sweet, light spice heat but it lingers for a bit. Overall, this is a fascinating hot sauce, hints of almost barbecue going on here, but it's got a nice, light heat and smokey, roasty character that is really well done and complex. Relatively mild as hot sauces go, but the barrel character seems to actually come through and contribute more here than I'd expect.

Hot Sauce Nerd Details: Bottled (375 ml). Heat level: Mild (estimated)

Next up, Pappy & Company Barrel-Aged Pepper Sauce. This is a collaboration with Midland Ghost, a hot sauce made from first generation Ghost Peppers and aged in Pappy barrels of unspecified expression (my guess is the 10 and 12 year, as with the syrup). A little more straightforward, but still quite nice.

Pours a light, bright orange color, pepper chunks visible. Smells more evenly of pepper, apparently ghost pepper. Taste is more obviously hot sauce than the BLiS stuff, lots of peppers, vinegar, and moderate to high heat. Mouthfeel is lighter and thinner but spicer, hotter than BLis (though it's not overly-so, nor is it something that will get the Scoville-addicts who've built up a resistance excited). Overall, this is hot, tasty, and interesting. I don't get a ton of bourbon or anything to indicate its provenance, but it's still pretty good... if a little disappointing since the maple syrup they make has such a great bourbon character.

Hot Sauce Nerd Details: Bottled (5 ounces). Heat level: Medium (estimated)

Verdict? The BLiS is more interesting and unconventional and I think I like it better overall, but the Pappy & Co offering is still a good, if more conventional, hot sauce. That being said, the world of hot sauce is so large that it's hard to justify the Pappy premium for something that isn't as distinctive as you might think.

Various expressions of Pappy Van Winkle are widely considered to be the best Bourbon in the world. They are also widely derided as overrated and overhyped, which naturally has the effect of making Pappy even more prized in an unintential, reverse-psychology sort of way. We're kinda trapped in Pappy dominance with no real way out, is what I'm saying.

The cachet of Van Winkle has, of course, spread. Spent Pappy barrels are a prized commodity and are used to age everything from beer to, yes, maple syrup. What we have here is a collaboration between Pappy & Co and Ohio's Bissel Maple Farm. It's made with sap harvested in the Spring of 2016 and aged 6 months in Van Winkle 10 and 12 year old barrels (a previous batch was aged in Pappy 23 barrels - I'm guessing that's the one that shows up on ridiculous Maple Syrup Walez lists that I'm sure actually exist because lol, this is the internets). It's pricey, but is it worth the stretch?

Bourbon Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup Aged in Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon Barrels - Pours a very dark amber color. Smell has a very distinct bourbon note, moreso than any other Bourbon Barrel Aged syrup I've had (and, um, I've actually had a few different kinds), really interesting mix with the more typical maple syrup character. That bourbon note follows to the taste, again creating a distinct character from typical maple syrup and even other bourbon barrel-aged syrups. Bourbon flavor, but no real booze, which is, uh, a good thing. Overall, it's pricey af, but really tasty!

Beer Nerd Musings: So obviously Pappy Van Winkle barrel aged beer is almost as ridiculously hyped as the bourbon itself. Sometimes with reason. Pappy Black Magick might vie for the title of best beer I've ever had. Other beers aged in Pappy barrels weren't as successful, which speaks to the importance of other factors, I think (in that case, I don't think the base beer was a good choice for barrel aging). Obviously maple syrup and beer also go together pretty well, and some of the most prized beers have been aged in maple syrup barrels that previously held bourbon (though not these Pappy syrup barrels, I don't think). Bissel Maple Farm has specifically shown up as an element of Goose Island's Proprietor's Reserve Bourbon County line as well. I've actually not had the beers I'm referencing, but I'm most certainly on the lookout. My guess is that we'll see more of these over time...

So yes, quite pricey, but I think it's worth a shot at least once. Treat yo self. Pappy & Co. also make a bourbon infused hot sauce which we'll hopefully cover next week, along with another beer/bourbon adjacent hot sauce, so stay tuned.

On the first Friday of every month, there's a beer blog roundup called The Session. Someone picks a topic, and everyone blogs about it. This time around, Christopher Barnes wants to know:

What place do imported beers (traditional European) have in a craft beer market?

An interesting question! When I was getting into "good" beer, imported stuff, particularly Belgian beer, was my inspiration. We're talking turn of the century timeframe here, so even the American craft beer that was knocking my socks off was inspired by Belgian beers. Ommegang Hennepin was my entree into great beer, and saisons in particular. Chimay was something that was pretty regularly available, but after some time, I eventually made my way to things like Orval (my first Brett dosed beer) and Fantôme.

All of that was before I ever got the notion to start a beer blog, but even after that, I was enamored with Belgian beer. I went through the Trappist rituals, ticked obscure breweries, played a little game I called Belgian Beer Roulette. It was great fun.

As the American craft beer scene exploded, I went through a period of import contraction. It's tough to keep up with all the new local breweries, let lone American breweries in general. Since the import market is relatively stable, the number of new beers crossing my path there was relatively limited. The one big exception is lambics. They were what made me see the light when it came to sour beers in general, and while the best lambics tend to be a little more difficult to obtain, they are indeed among the best beer's I've ever had. This will most likely continue.

There were, of course, more than Belgian imports out there. I've enjoyed beers from all over. There are definitely some beer regions I want to explore more thoroughly. Germany has some interesting beer cultures, and I have some friends in Dusseldorf who really want me to try their best Altbiers (which don't get imported with any sort of regularity, though I have seen some). Italy's beer scene has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years, but I get the impression that a lot of the best stuff doesn't make its way over here, which is probably the same for a lot of foreign beer.

I suspect this is similar to what a lot of European drinkers see of American beer. Yes, they get some of the U.S. craft beer explosion, but it tends to be the larger regional powerhouses like Stone, Victory, Lagunitas, and the like. Nothing wrong with those beers, for sure, but the most interesting American beer is happening at the tiny scale breweries that can barely supply their local environs. Again, I suspect a lot of great European beer falls into the same category: fabulous beer that doesn't (and probably shouldn't!) expand beyond its native land. Fortunately, there are plenty of great beers that do get over here. And it's worth noting that much of what drives American beer is descended from imported beer traditions. It's probably not an accident that my initial exposure to Belgian beer styles was from an American brewery...

So I do expect imported beers will continue to play a role in my beer diet. Perhaps a little diminished than in years past, but still present! That being said, I don't think imported beers are going away or anything, nor do I think that American beers are supplanting their imported brethren. I may drink more American beer, but that's probably more a function of where I am than anything else. New things rarely supplant the old things. I shall leave you with a quote from Neal Stephenson's The System of the World, where the character Daniel Waterhouse ponders how new systems supplant older systems:

"It has been my view for some years that a new System of the World is being created around us. I used to suppose that it would drive out and annihilate any older Systems. But things I have seen recently ... have convinced me that new Systems never replace old ones, but only surround and encapsulate them, even as, under a microscope, we may see that living within our bodies are animalcules, smaller and simpler than us, and yet thriving even as we thrive. ... And so I say that Alchemy shall not vanish, as I always hoped. Rather, it shall be encapsulated within the new System of the World, and become a familiar and even comforting presence there, though its name may change and its practitioners speak no more about the Philosopher's Stone." (page 639)

Surround and encapsulate, but not destroy. Seems apt.

I am entering that cyclical period of contraction which results in a general slowdown in drinking activity (i.e. a beer recession; like an economic recession, but nowhere near as dire). As with previous experiments on this sort of thing, this is not quite a strict ban on beer drinking (nor alcohol in general), just a reduction in consumption. The goals are pretty much the same as ever: break some bad habits, get my health in order, explore other realms of boozy glory, reset my palate, delay gratification, and so on.

Posting will slow down a bit for the next few weeks, but you can still expect one or two posts a week. Some will cover differing areas of booze (I've got some Wine and Bourbon on deck right now) and others might even involve non-alcoholic substances (customarily Tea, but I might throw something out there about maple syrup and/or hot sauce). As usual, while I might be writing about something other than my preferred beverage, I tend to do so from a beer dork's perspective, which I hope is enlightening. Indeed, I sometimes wonder what a whiskey or wine nerd would think about my posts on that topic... as if I have enough readers for that to matter! Anywho, I might even do a little straightup beer commentary while I'm at it, who knows?

When I started doing this a few years ago, I didn't really know what to expect, but I enjoyed it enough that I've done it every year since then. Detoxing and realigning for a while really does make for a triumphant return, and my waistline is usually pretty happy about it too. So stay tuned, we'll almost certaining be talking Wine and Bourbon next week...

It's the time of year when everyone feels obliged to take a step back and reflect on where we are and where we're going. I suppose aligning this with orbital cycles makes as much sense as anything else, so since this is a beer blog, I shall recap my year in beer. 2016 was a crappy year in many ways, but no so much with beer, which is nice, since this is a beer blog. So what happened this year?

• Repeat Beers - I've been something of a novelty whore for a while now. Rarely did I drink a beer that I'd had before, preferring instead to try something new. This is something that's been easing for a while now, and 2016 marks a high point for me. I probably still drink a far wider variety of beer than your average dork, but the thought of buying a 4 or 6 pack and drinking the whole thing doesn't seem infeasible anymore, so that's different. Don't get me wrong, I'm still fascinated with new beers and continually seek them out, but I've had enough beers to know what I like, and look forward to trying certain beers every year now, which is nice.
• Bottle Shares - I mentioned last year that I fell into a good group of local beer nerds who have a regular share, and it's been fantastic. Everyone's very generous, and it's always a good time. I've been to a few others as well, and it's generally a fun way to try a bunch of beer that I'd probably never even know about or hope to acquire (most of the below "Unreviewed" list is from shares.)
• Homebrewing - Another lackluster year in this arena for me, but let's make a new years resolution to get this hobby going again. I had a good start with my Christmas Ale rebrew (which I dubbed Rantlers! after a favorite movie quote from a bad movie) and plan to keep it going with my much threatened Scotch Ale in the near future.
• Blogging Plateau - I've continued a slow decline in the number of posts, I know. Part of this has to do with the above. Drinking more of the same beer means less things to review. I've also gotten over the compulsion to write about every new beer I try and tend to focus on beers that are interesting or great. This will probably continue into 2017.
• Taking a Break - For the third year in a row, I basically gave up beer for Lent. This is a great chance to reset and recalibrate and it's good for my waistline too. Plus, I get to explore other worlds of boozy glory, which is actually very enlightening. In theory, this should translate to more variety throughout the year, but I'm basically still obsessed with beer, so while I do blog about wine and whiskey and whatnot from time to time, don't expect this to turn into anything other than a beer blog.
• Other Stuff - Minimal trading last year, but I don't think that will hold up. Definitely some great stuff I'm looking to trade for this year. I still go through phases where I drink down my cellar and try aged beer (another recap of vintage beer coming soon) and for the most part, my recommendation remains to drink your beer fresh. My aging focus now is more on lambic than anything else, because I've had the best experience with that. Still plenty of things aging down there though, so you'll probably continue to see posts about aging beer from time to time.

It's been a good year of beer for me. Nothing too unusual going on, but my beer nerdery is continuing to progress apace. So here's a list of my 30 favorite beers of the year that were new to me. Astute readers may notice that this list is normally 40 beers, but in accordance with some of the above, I feel like less is more this year. As per usual, it has to be a beer that I reviewed this year and it's also something that I haven't reviewed before (i.e. no Heady or Parabola on this list). I'm also going to include a separate list of 5 beers I loved that I didn't review (almost all of which came from bottle shares, and thus were small pours with no notes taken, and so on). Of course, this is an entirely arbitrary exercise and the rankings would probably change depending on mood etc... I've also tried to limit the number of entries from a single brewery, but sometimes that's hard, so whatever. Let's get to it:

1. Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout (2015) (Imperial Stout)
2. Hill Farmstead Civil Disobedience #14 (Saison)
3. Other Half Double Dry Hopped Double Mosaic Dream (Double IPA)
4. Allagash FV 13 (American Wild Ale)
5. Firestone Walker XX Anniversary Ale (American Strong Ale)
6. Ale Apothecary Sahalie (American Wild Ale)
7. Tired Hands Rustic Pentagram (Saison)
8. Sante Adairius Saison Bernice (Saison)
9. FiftyFifty Eclipse Grand Cru
10. Fantôme Artist 2 (Saison)
11. Foam Built To Spill (Double IPA)
12. Hill Farmstead Dry Hopped Arthur (Saison)
13. Casita Cerveceria Del Árboles (Saison)
14. Crooked Stave Nightmare On Brett with Blueberries (American Wild Ale)
15. SingleCut Softly Spoken Magic Spells (Double IPA)
16. Funky Buddha Wide Awake It's Morning (Imperial Stout)
17. Midnight Sun Termination Dust (Barleywine)
18. Oskar Blues Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy (Imperial Stout)
19. Tired Hands Oat Potion (Saison)
20. The Veil Crucial Crucial Aunt Aunt (Double IPA)
21. Tired Hands Believer's Club Bottle 1 (Saison)
22. Forest & Main Marius (Peach) (Saison)
23. Free Will Ralphius (Imperial Stout)
24. Oude Geuze Boon Black Label (Gueuze)
25. McKenzie Toad the Brett Rocket (Saison)
26. Tröegs Bourbon Barrel Aged Impending Descent (Imperial Stout)
27. Hanssens Oude Schaarbeekse Kriek (Fruited Lambic)
28. Barrel of Monks Three Fates Tripel (Tripel)
29. Rodenbach Alexander (Flanders Red Ale)
30. Victory Java Cask Rye (Imperial Stout)

The Unreviewed Five
Beers that where I had small samples, never wrote a review, but an impression was made regardless.

1. The Bruery Wineificiation III
2. Cigar City Double Barrel Hunahpu's Imperial Stout
3. Kane A Night to End All Dawns (Vanilla)
4. Fremont B-Bomb Bourbon Barrel Aged Abominable Winter Ale
5. Casey Family Reserves - Cherry

I would love to get more of each and every one of these beers, but I'm just glad I got to try some of them at all.

So a great year in beer, with hopefully even more to come in 2017.