My 10th BA anniversary

Okay, so...this made me laugh so loud I scared the doggie! I am not supposed to laugh this hard in the morning! Coffee hasn't kicked in yet...LOL!

 

Congrats on the 10 year BA anniversary. I completely forgot my 10 year signup just occurred on Oct 30th as well. Time sure flies and yet there are so many beer advocate /craft beer memories over r the last decade. I’ve been enjoying the journey quite a bit!

First beer I reviewed was on 11/25/10 (after about a month of researching beers on BA)....Sam Smith Imperial Stout! Still a great beer IMO.

 

Congrats on the ten year milestone - it shows what kind of community we have with long-term membership. I'll be 9 BA years old in a few days myself.

I think we all approach this differently and maybe we go through cycles. I somehow survived bouts of alcoholism in my 20's and went cold turkey for many years, before I was able to learn the art of moderation. I think having more flavorful beers available actually helped that happen. I can drink for the enjoyment of the flavors and drink one beer where before it would have been a case of <insert cheap shitty beer here> pluis whatever else I could lay my hands on because I didn't care and just wanted to be/stay drunk. I'm mostly a couple of beers on the weekend drinker now - rarely during the week. My weakness is travel where ticker mentality takes over, but business travel for me has effectively stopped between professional responsibilities and the Covid issue. My other weakness is food - food makes me happy and that is also a tough battle especially now that I am almost officially a senior citizen...

I will say - I do remember when I joined up and started participating, it was LNBA/WBAYDN/NBS and it felt like a game of catching up with all of the great beers out there - it was easy to get caught up in the excitement. Having been down that path, I could feel the "dark side" ahead of me and put the brakes on the increase in consumption before it got out of control again. When I get to feeling like I "need" a beer, I know to do some thinking on the subject. I am an unpredictable drunk, too, so it wasn't much fun for anybody when I was overindulging and people who stuck by me tell me I did some incredibly stupid things.

Buying is a whole different story - I do buy a lot of beer and have a significant stockpile of beer that will be nowhere near what it was when it was made. It's some weird form of FOMO, I suppose. It's not like I have a cellar where I can go sit and admire my stash - there's little collections all over the kitchen and dining room...but I drink at a far slower space than I buy, for sure.