Introductions

I shall be trying this out for a little bit to see how it goes (I tend to be notoriously horrible in updating blogs), but I really do enjoy tasting, learning about and drinking craft beer. I also have a snazzy camera that I should be using more often. So, when I combine both my lack of writing over the last two years and the lack of using that camera, we come to two things I want to make more use of. That probably makes no sense to anyone except me. Anyway, let’s move on.

I used to review video games. I’m not a beer reviewer. I have read books and I have a general idea of how to critically look at a product. I've been drinking and enjoying craft beer for approximately five years.

That being said. I’m not keen on the prissy and long-winded details that you find in most "serious" beer reviews. If I like a brew, I just like it, and I say that I like it. I can’t explain it. Same thing goes if I dislike it. I have a relatively wide baseline for most beer styles – I know what I like and I know what is generally considered liked by the masses of craft beer aficionados.

I drink a beer for the first time, or smell its aroma and certain things start hitting my brain, and that’s generally what I think of the beer. True, some of that my change as I get to the bottom of a glass or a bottle (or, for that matter, each subsequent time I have a bottle of the same beer) and that will be noted. But, I think I’m going to stick with short and sweet “reviews” of some sort. You know, kind of like, “Use five words to describe this beer”, or something along those lines.

Beer is a very personal thing. You could take the same quality craft beer, two very knowledgeable craft beer drinkers that have hundreds or thousands of brews under their belt – one of them will love it and the other will hate it, one will pick up a huge citrus kick and another will think it’s more piney, one will say the aroma is lacking and the other will think it smells better than a bakery in Paris. That’s both the beauty and the downfall of craft beer. It’s great that different people can pick up different things from the same beer, but at the same time, people get ridiculously offended if you dislike something that is supposed to be “one of the best” or a “must find” brew.

I take a very “to each their own” attitude about craft beer, as should everyone. It’s a very individual thing and it isn’t always possible to change (physiology about taste buds varying from person to person and all), nor should you want to.

So, those are my general views going into this, so we’ll see how it goes, kk?

If you'd like to check out my Untappd profile, feel free to do so. I use it mostly to keep track of the beers I drink, not particularly to review them or to "connect" with other people. It does, however, show the variety of beers I've had and, perhaps in some small way, lends weight to this little tiny corner of the internet that belongs to me.