Second Anniversary

If you’ll permit some blogtastic navel-gazing, I passed the two year mark of the blog a couple weeks ago (being drunk at the time, I neglected to note said anniversary and kinda forgot about it). To celebrate, I’ve cracked open a homebrewed Earl Grey Bitter, and nerd that I am, compiled some statistics that you should totally read because I know you’re all enraptured by such things:

• 379 Total Posts, 227 in the past year (this represents a significant increase in posting rate, from about 3 posts a week to a little over 4 a week)
• 303 Total Comments, not a metric I measured last year, but I get the impression that I’ve had a lot more this year than last year. It should also be noted that a significant number of comments are my responses, though none of this includes other forms of response (emails, tweets, etc…), which have been plentiful this year as well… Much of this interaction is due to certain other awesome bloggers, so thanks guys!
• 70 posts about IPAs, 43 in the past year, making that the most talked-about style on the blog. Stouts come in second with 51 posts (30 in the past year). This is on par with last year, and it should be noted that I don’t break out double/imperial varieties either (which inflates numbers a bit). Rounding out the top styles are Saison (28 posts), Belgian Strong Dark (25 posts), American Pale Ale (18 posts) and Tripel (18 posts).
• 28 posts about Victory Brewing, which remains the most talked about brewery on the blog. Tied in a distant second place are Russian River, Mikkeller, Ommegang, and Weyerbacher, each clocking in at 14 posts. Rounding out the most talked about breweries, we’ve got: Dogfish Head (12), Founders (12), Tröegs (12), Stone (11), The Bruery (11), and Lagunitas (10).
• 183 different breweries have posts. This is not a metric I measured last year, so I don’t know how it really compares, but even after two years, I still find myself consistently adding new breweries to the list.
• 242 posts about beer from US breweries, which is over 4 times as many posts as the runner up, Belgium (54). The UK comes in at 20 posts (though 10 are from Scotland), and Denmark puts in a strong showing (no doubt fueled by Mikkeller) at 17 posts. Scotland, Canada, and Germany get some love, but probably not enough, coming in at 10,9, and 8 posts respectively.
• 129 posts featured a beer rated B+, which remains most common rating by a rather large margin. It is, perhaps, a little overused and a bunch of those beers should probably be a B, but whatever, it’s not like I try to drink mediocre beer. Speaking of which, coming in second place is A- with 97 posts, followed by B with 84 posts, and A with 50 posts. Last year, there was a little more parity in that the B and B- ratings pretty neatly paralleled the A- and A ratings respectively, but now the distribution is a little top heavy. Again, I’m going out of my way for good beer, so this is probably a good thing.

Last year, I was a little taken aback by how much beer I’d drank/reviewed. Little did I know that I would significantly outpace myself this year. However, I should note that I think I’ve curtailed drinking overall a bit, despite the increase in posting. In my first year, I was still drinking a fair amount of six packs/cases/duplicate beers (only one of which would be reviewed), but it’s pretty rare for me to drink the same beer twice these days (the grand majority of which are reviewed), and even more rare to put down a full six pack. The one exception to this is probably homebrew, though I tend to give a lot of that away too.

The blog is definitely still focused mainly on beer reviews, though I do try to use the review as an excuse to wax philosophic about style, history, or issues of the day, and I do try to liven things up from time to time with screenplays or even adventure! I’d like to do some more brewery visits to up and coming stars in the future as well. I was pretty good about non-review posts for a portion of the year, but I’ve since fallen out of that habit. Mayhap I can return to that sometime too. I’ve been at this long enough that I should really put together a best posts category, so if you have any favorites, feel free to let me know.

So yeah, it’s been a good year, tons of great beer and a lot of fun. I don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon, so keep your eyes peeled. Some spectacular stuff coming in the near future, if I can manage it. Cheers!