Finally A Poo-Bah: Thank You All!

I just realized while browsing the forums that my beer karma tipped over 1500, officially making me a Poo-Bah. I've been loving this community for years now and just wanted to thank everyone on here. I'm approaching 1000 reviews, and have something awesome planned for that. I know that this post is pointless, but it's cool for me to get my thoughts out there. Be warned, there's a lot to read.

I wanted to share a few memories, mostly chronologically, of my BA journey from over the years:

• Browsing BA while it was slow at my retail job before actually making an account, just looking for new beers to try with my friends on the weekend. This led to a lot of Stone, DFH, Lagunitas, Sam Adams, etc.
• My first review when I joined the site was 90 Minute IPA. It's a terrible review, but it got me on the right track of reviewing many beers to come. I should revisit that review, I would probably score it higher now
• Getting Sour Monkey and Foolproof's Mango Vango as a birthday gift really opened my eyes to the world of Kettle Sours, which would lead to actual spontaneous Wild Ales. That mostly started with Almanac's Sournova series and others they make, with a special shoutout to Allagash's Nancy (my intro to Americanized Lambic)
• CBS. Tried it in late 2019. It was my favorite beer then, and it still remains there over 2 years later
• I posted in the forums infrequently in my early years, but always read them along with reviews to build my beer knowledge base
• The pandemic caused me to start buying local, which led to my first trip to Tree House. Those NEIPAs changed the games for me. King Julius is one of my favorites, still sitting at the bottom of my top 10 all time
• I also visited Jack's Abby (along with Springdale) around the same time which birthed my love of lagers. Now I search for quality American examples of several lager styles, along with the traditional versions
• Late in 2020, I finally joined the Society here. Felt it was necessary to support the site that built up all of my beer knowledge. I was more active in the forums at this point, and my reviewing really started to hone in around then
• The Extreme Beer Fest and IPA Fest in Cyberspace were super fun times. Drunk nights with my friend and good beer
• I graduated college in May 2021, and with a career, found myself with more money to buy good beer
• Given this new job and being done with school, I started to browse the forums mostly every day
• In August 2021, me and @Pru decided, basically on a whim, to start homebrewing. We've brewed 3 beers so far, an English Pale Ale that was solid, a Hefeweizen that impressed us and others (especially given the disastrous brew day), and a Brut IPA which was just mehh. We hope to brew more soon
• On my search for rare and fun beer, Utopias was a highlight. I was very happy with that find, and it was a fun bottle (but necessary to split)
• I started trading in September 2021, which has been a really fun way to get my hands on beers I don't have access to. My first trade (first 2 actually) managed to pull in Fou' Foune, a beer I've wanted for a long time. Shoutout to @fo1ksguitar and @fo5s. It was a mindblowing experience, and my second highest rated beer ever. I need more Lambic. Also shoutout to my other trade partners so far, @merpunk1 and @zid for my first in-person trade
• Currently, I'm in the midst of my first BIF. Seems like a fun new side to the site. Shoutout to @BigIronH for getting me into that
• And now (well, in a few weeks) I'll hit beer 1000 like I said, another great milestone
• I'll keep reviewing after that, and keep contributing to the forums. I hope to see all of you stick around for a while. Again, awesome community here

TLDR: I felt like looking back on my beer/BA journey and talk about how much I love it here. Cheers y'all!

 

Yeah you got a fair point there haha. Only said that because I know there's gotta be someone out there that will roll their eyes at this post