2014 Year End Musings

According to the Gregorian calendar, the earth has completed yet another orbit around the sun, and thus Earthlings like myself are prone to reflect on the previous orbital period or somesuch. I had a weird year in beer, in some ways it’s a natural progression, in other ways, I’ve regressed. Depending on your point of view, I guess. Regardless, the usual categories of musings I cover every year in a post like this (See 2013, 2012, and 2011 musings) have been mildly stagnant this year. On the other hand, that’s probably a good thing. So here’s some musings for 2014 and because I like arbitrary exercises and I seem to do it every year, a top 40 list.

  • Taking a Break – I took a break from drinking beer (er, mostly) in March and April of 2014, which was actually a very enjoyable experience. I spent some time with other libations and even some non-alcoholic beverages (the horror!) I plan on doing the same thing (at around the same time) this year, so saddle up.
  • Drinking Down the Cellar – After my beer break, I spent a few months drinking beers from my cellar. I’ve noted on many occasions that my eyes are bigger than my liver, so my cellar was growing. Not one of those obscene things that you see on youtube or somesuch, but sizeable enough that I wanted to do some pruning. A fair amount of this was stuff I’d had before, so much of it didn’t actually show up on the blog… which lead to:
  • Decrease in Blogging – I still blog a lot, but there was a time when I’d crank out 4-5 entries a week. Now it’s mostly 3 (with the occasional 4th, though also sometimes less), which has become a comfortable groove for me. I expected to continue in this manner in 2015, perhaps settling down into 2-3 entries a week (or less).
  • An American Wild Year – Looking at my top 40, I’m struck by how many American Wild Ales show up (with the occasional Lambic or sour/funky Saison that might as well be an American Wild) and, conversely, how few Barrel Aged Imperial Stouts there were (Not that they’re absent, but seeing as though they’re my favorite style…) I think this probably has something to do with a strong local scene in Wild Ales, and just a few opportunities that came up. I find that my ability to acquire great beer tends to go in style waves, with 2014 being a whole lot of saisons and American Wilds. Right now, I’m predictiong 2015 will have a few more Stouts!
  • Trading – In all honesty, I don’t think I completed a single trade this year, though a few of the beers on the list below are from late 2013 trades. I still managed to get my hands on plenty of non-locally distributed beer and I anticipate this dry spell ending in the next couple months, but yeah, not a year for trading over here.
  • Wales, bro – Not a ton of these this year either (and certainly not the true beer nerd walez), but a couple of personal white whales were slain this year, but those are stuff everyone’s had before and for some reason had eluded me until 2014, like The Abyss or Saison Brett. And then there’s emerging breweries like Sante Adairius or local wonders like Tired Hands, which I’m doing my best to keep up with. I see more of that happening this year as well, not so much with the insane wales, bro.
  • Ratings Inflation – I mentioned this last year as well, but ratings inflation has continued unabated. Stuff I rated an A a few years ago often does not compare to the stuff I’m rating an A these days. The only exception is the A+ category, where I never rate anything (only 4 entries in the 4 years of the blog, and none in 2014). I think the point there is that I generally want to try a beer on multiple occasions and see if it stands up to the test of time, which is sometimes impossible (limited, one time only brews?) and also not conducive to stuff I’ve already reviewed. That being said, perhaps we’ll have some upgrades in the year 2015. Stay tuned!
  • Homebrewing – I’ve been terribly lazy this year. I started off pretty strong, with a batch of Fat Weekend IPA and an oak-aged barleywine, but since then, things have been pretty quiet on this front. In part, this has to do with my whole drinking down the cellar thing (a not insignificant amount of the beer down there is homebrew), but it’s also definitely a laziness thing. I plan on revving back up soon enough.
  • Aging/Cellaring Beer – Drinking down my cellar wasn’t really part of my experiment with aging beer, more just a result of buying too much beer and unintentionally aging it. As with last year, I’m finding that aging is interesting, but rarely produces spectacular results. This bottle of 1.5 year old Tired Hands Only Void was spectacular, and I had a few other successes in 2014, but for the most part, I’m still finding that drinking beer fresh is your best bet. However, I do have some true experiments that I’m hoping to did into in 2015. I anticipate at least a few will be great.

So it’s been an odd year, certainly not bad, just different. In the grand scheme of things, that’s probably a good thing though, so here’s my list of top 40 beers I’ve tried this year. The list is limited to beers I had and reviewed this year, so if you don’t see your favorites on the list, don’t get too worked up about it. Or get worked up about it, if that’s your thing, just don’t expect me to care too much. Everything on the list has been rated at least an A- on my grading scale and the ordering is generally from best to worst. This is, of course, an entirely arbitrary exercise, but I always have fun with lists, so take that with a giant grain of salt. I tried to limit breweries to a handful of entries, though I think I still ended up with, like, 4 Tired Hands beers on here. Make of that what you will, here’s the list:

  1. Tired Hands Parageusia1 (American Wild Ale)
  2. Stone Fyodor’s Classic (Imperial Stout)
  3. Hill Farmstead Society & Solitude 5 (Double IPA)
  4. Tired Hands The Emptiness is Eternal (Saison)
  5. The Bruery Mash (Barleywine)
  6. Sante Adairius Cask 200 (American Wild Ale)
  7. Cascade Sang Royal (American Wild Ale)
  8. Firestone Walker Stickee Monkee (Quadrupel)
  9. Cantillon Iris (Lambic)
  10. Tired Hands Psychic Facelift (IPA)
  11. Cisco Pechish Woods (American Wild Ale)
  12. Carton 077XX (Double IPA)
  13. Union Double Duckpin (Double IPA)
  14. Logsdon Oak Aged Bretta (Saison)
  15. Tired Hands Back Into The Emptiness (Saison)
  16. Firestone Walker XVII – Anniversary Ale (American Strong Ale)
  17. Hill Farmstead Harlan IPA (IPA)
  18. Thirsty Dog Wulver (Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy)
  19. Neshaminy Creek The Shape Of Hops To Come (Double IPA)
  20. Avery 5 Monks (Quadrupel)
  21. Voodoo Buffalo Trace Black Magick (Imperial Stout)
  22. FiftyFifty Old Conundrum On Wood (Barleywine)
  23. Three Floyds Chevalier Bertrand Du Guesclin (American Wild Ale)
  24. Lost Abbey Framboise De Amarosa (American Wild Ale)
  25. Almanac Farmer’s Reserve Pluot (American Wild Ale)
  26. Voodoo Pappy Van Winkle Big Black Voodoo Daddy (Imperial Stout)
  27. Hill Farmstead Florence (Saison)
  28. Cisco Monomoy Kriek (American Wild Ale)
  29. Lost Abbey Track #8 (Quadrupel)
  30. Deschutes The Abyss 2013 Reserve (Imperial Stout)
  31. Crooked Stave L’Brett d’Or (American Wild Ale)
  32. HaandBryggeriet Odin’s Tipple (Imperial Stout)
  33. DC Brau On The Wings Of Armageddon (Double IPA)
  34. Surly Furious (IPA)
  35. Boulevard Saison-Brett (Saison)
  36. Forest & Main Lunaire (Saison)
  37. Victory Wild Devil (American Wild Ale)
  38. Allagash PNC Broken Elevator (American Wild Ale)
  39. Prairie Puncheon (Saison)
  40. The Bruery Sucré (Old Ale)

Well, after looking through that list, it seems I did have a rather fantastic year. Here’s to 2015, already shaping up to be a good one.

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