What do you love about this beer year?

The best so far was in August. I had been waiting for The Oracle to be released so that I had more of a reason to make my first visit to Bell's. Once they listed it as being on tap, I made plans to go to the brewpub that Saturday morning. It ended up being released in bottles the day before my visit and I was one of the last people to by bottles in their general store. I'm still working through that case and sending out a couple to a trade partner next week.

 

seeing all of the new brewerie pop up in the Charlotte area

 

Reviewing all 104 styles
Reviewing all 50 states
Being in my 1st BIF- Gang Bang 2 ( we ball hard)
Many more

Cheers!

 

Some of my highlights include:

Getting my two best friends into many new styles/breweries/beers
My first beer trade and the 30 trades that followed
Seeing (and tasting!) Pipeworks initial success
Improving on purchasing significantly less beer each time I go to the store
Having my own homebrew on draft in my livingroom
FoBAB!! Can't wait!

 

Beatification day was awesome, met tons of cool people and had my favorite beer of the year at 11 AM alongside pints of Pliny and the rest of the the RR lineup, plus a little bottleshare and Moonlight beers across the street.
SF Beer Week was the other favorite of mine, got to have Younger while talking to Vinnie from RR and lots of other goodies at the opening, not to mention all the other events all over the Bay.
Going on the tour at Anchor with my friends last month was a great experience, especially to see how much their love of craft beer has grown and knowing that I helped inspire it. And getting to try every beer as fresh as possible from my favorite brewery was a nice bonus

 

-visiting some new local breweries that are making really solid beer (kane, carton, tired hands)
-philly beer week (again)
-assorted events at monks (5050, cantillon, RR, deschutes, etc)
-EBF (again) along with some other fests
-vacation to San Diego and Mexico, visiting places like green flash, alesmith, coronado, toronado, etc
-tons of delicious beers available in cans
-moving into a new apartment where i have a legit space for cellaring/storing beer

 

I would also like to add, being able to meet more BA's this year...Im talking to you Alewatcher, GonzoIllini, DrewBA, Jay025 and the rest of the chicago guys. Also Markintihar is a quality guy.

Cheers!

 

What do I love about this beer year? That there's only 2 months of so 'till Celebration magically reappears...

 

Living 10 minutes from DFH's brewpub and brewery for a few months while doing some contract work was a pretty sweet deal.

 

Hit me back up when ten fidy hits chicago shelves!

 

Ticking.

 

this year won me over with cans. I wasn't a big fan before, but this year with all the great beers going to cans... i'm sold.

 

Finally being able to buy high abv in MS
Having our only brewery release a fantastic high abv beer (Lazy Magnolia Timber Beast)
Discovering the Untappd app

 

For some reason, this year was the year of sours for me:

Deschutes/HotD Collage
Block 15 Golden Canary
HotD/De Proef Flanders Fred
Cascade Figaro
Double Mountain sours in general
And fulfilled my dream vacation of going to Belgium where I had all kinds of Gueuze

Still sitting in my "cellar" (aka closet) waiting to be tasted:
Commons Eidolon
SN/RR Brux
Boulevard Saison Brett
A crap-load of Cantillon/3F that I brought back from my Belgium trip

And I'm looking forward to the release of Deschutes Dissident this Friday as well.

Of course, I drank many other beers as well, but I don't think I've ever had so many excellent sours in a year before.

 

When I realized that I had WAY more beer in my cellar than I could ever have "special occasions" so just about every weekend, I'd have the boys over to raid the cellar and we'd sit in the pool, tulips in hand, talking about life, death and everything in between.

 

Row 2/Hill 56
My trip to Bend (Deschutes and 10 Barrel being the highlights)
Sessionable beers (Alpha Session, Tartare, Day Time IPA)
Double Sunshine IPA

 

Moved up to Fort Collins a little over a month ago and being minutes away from Odell and Funkwerks is awesome. Fresh IPA and St. Lupulin.....yeah, that makes me very happy.

Digging the Oud Bruin style coming back into fashion. First with Avery's Oud Floris, next with Odell's The Meddler.

Uncle Jacobs Stout
My first Parabola
My first Two Hearted
Crooked Staves WWBI

 

Must also add Double Jack in 4 packs of 12 oz bottles to the above list. They finally hit Fort Collins.

 

Drinking, beer trading and heady topper.

 

Found enough Hopslam
Found enough Abacus
Found enough Parabola
Found enough Ruination 10th Anniv
Found enough Stone 16th anniv

NOBLE PILS in sixpacks now

Celis White introduced to AZ
Blanche de Bruxelles introduced to AZ
Hofbrau beers introduced to AZ
other beers, can't think of at the moment.

Several new beer bars & breweries opening in AZ