question for BAs with 500+ beers...

I am at 2536 with another 70 or so from breweries that closed before I could enter the beer on BA. I have a 700 page file of notes.

 

I'm just short of 500 since I've been keeping track. At the current pace, I'll probably hit 500 at DLD. There are tons of beers I've had since I started drinking craft beer in the late 80's that I have not logged. I only started keeping track about 18 months ago. I forget all the time. I went out last night and ordered an ODells thinking I hadn't had it. Looked it up and I'd had one a year or so ago.

No biggie. One of my best friends is a ticker and he steadfastly refuses to drink the same beer twice unless there's no choice. He's racing his BIL, who's also a ticker with over 2K unique beers. I don't really care, though I did get on the ticker train pretty hard for a year or so. I'm actively trying to take a more casual approach to craft beer...trying new ones when a nice opportunity arises, but more looking to just enjoy every beer I have, new or not. In fact, I'm firing up the kegerator soon and will pretty much be drinking the same beer for a month or more at a time. I'm looking forward to putting the chase behind me.

 

I tend to remember the beers that I have had from the breweries that I drink a lot of. Really do not remember some of the average beers from breweries that I have come across while traveling though.

 

Ok 16 shy of the 500 required for posting in this thread, but will post anyway. Usually I can, but if I can't I will break out the phone and check if I have had it. If I have had it and gave it a good rating/no review, I will take the opportunity to try it again and review it. I have only reviewed about 30% of the beers I have ticked here because most of my drinking is with my wife, and well, she puts up with enough already

 

Closing in on 3500, trying to catch up the ratings here...I remember most of what I've had, but have a few slip through the cracks, either in trying something again (in which case I'll re-rate it) or missing the obvious flagship beers...

 

I don't review on BA, but I'm shortly before 2000 and usually remember if I've had something.

The most problematic are beers I've shared at festivals (so much shared small pours on one day), and beers which have 20 different barrel aged versions and I've had a few of these barrel aged versions - then it's hard to know from the top of my head which ones exactly I've had.

 

There is certainly a point for everyone when you will begin to have trouble remembering. It's much harder as time goes on to remember the beers that aren't in your distribution that you may only try once.

I enjoy trying beers I haven't had in a while to see if I still feel the same about how I rated them. Things are much different now with being more educated about what to expect from a beer.

 

I just recently passed 1300 different. I, too, can usually remember if I have had a beer, but it is becoming a little more difficult as I sometimes buy a beer, drink it, prepare to rate and review and them realize I have had. It is starting to happen a little;e more as I have had a good deal of different beers...

 

Sometimes... I wish there was a really good site that I could track all of the beers and my reviews that I had and I could reference it all the time

...

Seriously though... some times are more familiar and it's also interesting when I have re reviewed something again by accident. Found my overall impressions rarely changed.

 

I really like when that happens to me too. I really can't remember them all and it is fun to look and see if it's similar or the same. It's also something that if you let yourself do you will buy the beer and the style you really liked naturally. Shopping for new beer means buying new beer though so that's why you have to let yourself drink the same beers again. =)

 

Good way to think about it since since that also helps give a confidence in the original review. For a few years I stuck pretty rigorously to only reviewing bottled beer from the 3rd beer in a 4 or 6 pack. In doing that I found that most of the time my impressions from the first 12oz were not really changed much by the 3rd bottle.

Now that we are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of places here in PA where there are bottle shops (selling beer for takeout also requires that food be available for onsite and takeout), I'm much more comfortable picking a mixed six and reviewing single bottles.

 

Somehow I usually remember.

 

I'm at just over 20,000, I'm the Wilt Chamberlain of beer box checking. This is a contest isn't it? It's only about quantity, quality be damned.

 

I remember beers I drank before the internet ...

I generally don't remember many beers at festivals unless they really stand out.

 

Memory is an interesting thing...

If you probably came up to me and said what were your top 5 rated or favorite American IPAs, or other style, I would probably go blank with maybe a few exceptions. I've had hundreds of great tasting IPAs (and no I am not talking about list chasing top rated beers here), there's many good ones they don't all have to be rated A+++ to make one better than the other. Same with any other style, or brewery, unless it's fresh in my mind (I was just recently going over my lambic and tripel selections lately cause I had been drinking quite a few lately).

Now if someone says to me though what do you think of beer X, then I almost always can remember that if I had it or not and what I thought of it overall.

 

I am currently at 1300 some and there are times I drink a beer thinking it's new only to be surprised I have had it already. Don't bother me though, it's always good to revisit beers you had before.

 

It can be tricky, particularly since I've only logged about 150 with BA, though I've probably had over 1000 (out of principle I don't rate unless I'm able to sit down and give the beer a thorough review), and don't have the ability to look it up on my phone. Sometimes I find myself wondering if I've had a particular beer but if I think about it long enough it usually does come to me. If not, well, that's just an excuse to drink it again!

 

I usually remember if I've hada beer or not with about 95% accuracy. If I forget it is usually ones that I had a long time ago or ones that I had at a big share. It also is usually a beer that is not well known.

 

That's actually one reason I use BA. It helps me to keep track of the beers I have had if I liked them, etc. It really helps me because I don't remember them all!