Why is it bad to be a ticker?

because drinking beer is an experience. it puts you back in a place and time. it's something you quite often enjoy with friends/family while having a good time. you savor the beer while telling stories and laughing with your buddies.

you knock a few back after a round of golf, over a bonfire, at the bar with pals after a game.. it's a social experience.

"ticking" has the connotation of being nose down in a notepad, checking a box, scribbling a hasty "review" and moving on to the next "tick". you have eliminated the "experience" from beer drinking. you're focused on trying as many as possible with no interruption.

it's the fixation on hoarding/amassing that wierds me out. great.. you've drank 1000 beers this year. we're all proud of you?

 

I don't think anybody is really saying ticking is evil. It is a fair observation to make, though, that some people are just caught up in the numbers game (see the definitions earlier in the thread). Also think everybody has ticker tendencies at one time or another - I don't even remember how many pumpkin ales we burned through last fall, so "guilty"... As with most of the terms that get tossed around much of the negative connotation comes down to attitude - whether it is beer snob, beer geek, <gasp - gotta include it> hoarder, noob, 2012-er, or even advocate.

I think it fair to say that most folks like to try new things - no doubt that is one of the things that makes beer so much fun in the first place. Some choose to not drink the same beer twice, others stick with a handful of faves, but I would bet most are somewhere in the middle. Probably when you come down to it, most people don't really care - ticking isn't causing anybody harm. When I go to the store and stand there faced with the overwhelming number of choices, I realized early on that it would be unrealistic for me (given my fairly low consumption rate) to dedicate myself to trying everything I see on the shelf. So I have my "go to" list that is fairly short, and pick up something new to explore. That's my choice and I agree - who cares what my choice is? Who actually cares that I am willing to share that viewpoint? It's a discussion-based forum, so different viewpoints are part of the game. Be an awful lot of very short threads if it were otherwise.

 

I think the stigma around ticking is that beer tickers just want to try beers for the sake of being able to say "I've tried this many beers!" Personally, I love going into my local bottle shop and trying something I've never had before. But I do this for the sake of exposing myself to new things and seeing what I like and what I don't, not for the sake of building my "beer portfolio" per say.

 

Most people don't actually know what a ticker is. Serial-trying new beers does not make you a ticker. Tickers look to log or review as many beers as possible. Fifty or more ticks in a day is a possibility. Reviews from tickers are shit because the sample quantity is small (as little as one ounce) and the palate is already wrecked for most of them.