Weaning Myself Off Being a Ticker

[quote="rgordon, post: 2009089, member: 674187Aquisitional exuberance.[/quote]
I like that statement! It's very true and meaningful. A guy on CNN earlier this week called our current culture "affluenza" or the constant quest to be affluent. Constantly buying "stuff" whether we need it or not or will use it at all. We live in a very disposable society these days. When people now say "oh expect laptops and smart phones to only last 2-3 years tops" there is something quite wrong with our buying habits and attitudes towards high-end products. Beer buying is a problem for some that fits this culture, as they realize at some point they have a full bottle shop of beer in their house, and need to figure out how to move inventory before it goes bad and have to throw away.

 

On a side note, what does anyone see in untappd? Seriously? it it an awful site/app, hard to navigate, the ratings are meaningless because it forces everything into a bell curve and most people seem to just use it to post amazingly crappy pictures of the beer they are drinking. It's like drunk Instagram but not funny in the ways that it sounds like it would be.

 

I've always thought someone should create Shit-Face Book.

 

I'm a ticker. And I'm pretty proud of it.

 

Sounds like you really hate it. Makes total sense why you would spend time on it.

 

I don't really consider myself a ticker.
I don't review on this site, I don't have lists in the haves, wants gots section.
I have, however, been lucky enough to have had opportunities to get and try many of the top-rated beers here and on the other sites. I genereally don't go too far out of my way for them, though. I was going to Chicago for a weekend that happened to coincide with Dark Lord day, so I figured I'd try to get tickets. I did, so I went and got some. Kate the Great, Abyss, Pliny, HT, etc... I've tried most of them.
However, I still have the list of regular, go to, daily drinkers that I keep in stock.
It doesn;t stop me from looking for the latest and greatest, the new brewery on the block. I just don't drink them only for the sake of crossing off a name on a list.
It's all a matter of perspective and liver function.

 

This may sound weird, but maybe try starting to drink later in the day. I know sometimes after a long day when I'm a little tired I'm just in no mood to review and actually prefer pulling from a 6 pack or something.

 

There's good ticking and there's bad ticking.

Good ticking involves learning about staples of all the main styles, both European and American. It also involves learning about your own local beer scene, as well as any breweries that you find to be particularly awesome. In essence, it's about being educated and developing your palate. There's nothing wrong with that.

Bad ticking is ticking for the hell of it, such as getting something just because it's new, because the rarity has it hyped up, and just to log on and check off that you've had it. It's more about image (whether you present this image to yourself or to others) than about actually enjoying the beer. Not gonna lie, this is a pretty bad part of beer culture.

To stop bad ticking, buy sixers of beer you know you love. I combat ticking by often buying a Founders sixer and a Sam Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout whenever I go beer shopping. That way, half of my purchase is something I know I'll like, and the other half is a venture into a style that I should learn about or a local brew that I've heard good things about.

 

I wanted to stop reviewing after my 500th review, but I screwed that up. I'm going to try to stop at #1,000 but it will be a few more years before that happens.

 

Hi...my name is Jeff...and I'm a ticker. It's been one day since my last tick.

Seriously, I chased the Beers of Fame in an effort to gain a range and depth appreciation of different types of beers. I don't chase whales but I do go to bottle releases and a lot of my whales end up coming to me.

I no longer drink any beer just to say I drank it but I will if it's an IPA or stout unless I know it's a shitty brewery. So I guess I'm more of a selective ticker these days. I'm at 996 on Untappd and I already know BCBBW is going to be number 1,000.

 

I absolutely love the "sport" aspect of being a ticker. And I don't mean as a competitive sport, I mean as an adventure sport. And although I sometimes feel that I am"cheating" on my favorite beers I also know that after my ticker work that if I am ever literally faced with the proverbial hypothetical question "if you could only have one beer for a. There rest of your life. b.on a desert isle etc. (unlikley) that I could make a good decision.

 

I ticked at a fairly steady rate until I hit 500. After a while, I found it a bit tiring and had tried so many great beers during that time that I had no reason to keep chasing the next best beer. I just got to the point that I wanted to enjoy the great beers regularly available to me. I still seek out new beers now and then, but it's far from my top beer drinking priority.

 

Why is this a bad part of beer culture ?

Who are tickers harming ?

It's not your bag, fair enough, but why do you see it as bad ?

 

My reviews have slowed way down over the past year or so... I find myself going back to old favorites over and over now... still get new stuff but most of my purchases are old stand bys these days...

 

I realized I needed to be mindful of this syndrome when I was pulling something new out of the cellar, looked on this site and found that it already had tons of reviews. What relief, I just get to enjoy it! Um, wait a sec...

 

Try using a different beer app that doesn't reinforce ticking maybe? I use Stout which basically uses your ratings to personalize beer recommendations for you. Other than that, ticking won't get you an achievement on the app.

With that said, I've never really seen harm in ticking as long as you're doing it for the right reasons and as long as you're actually taking the time to actually enjoy the new beers. If you're doing it just to hit a number or get an achievement/badge, then it might be time to quit.

 

That's an awful way to appreciate different beers. You'd be more or less ignoring anything under 6%.....that's ALOT of the beer world you'd be missing out on.

 

What aspect of ticking are you proud of?