Taking a break from ticking?

Well played and thumbs up.

 

Keep calm, and tick on?

 

Much agreed. I try new stuff, KNOWING I'm passing up an opportunity to drink an old favorite. No regrets... except for that.. um... nope... no regrets.

 

Aww... I have a soft spot in my heart for DuClaw. Serum, Neon Gypsy, Brimstone (I loved them)... but then there's Funk, Naked Fish, Dirty Little Freak, Morgazm. But I understand. I really do.

 

Absolutely. When you've explored the various styles and developed your palate, whether you continue to try new beers is more of a function of how you make other life choices. Do you spend each summer in the same beach house/campground/whatever drinking old favorites? Or do you like to try new places, new foods, new beers? A mixture of both?

I personally love to travel to new places on beercations while exploring what makes each place unique. My wife loves to go the same beach town and just kick back and relax with her favorite IPA. Oddly enough, one of my sons is like me (although not with the beer yet as that would be wrong in the eyes of the law ) and the other like my wife. So we do both.

 

That's good, cause my money is still on you to come in first.

 

I am an anti ticker.

No, I'm not against ticking, to each his own.

I get pleasure in NOT knowing how many thousand beers I have tried.

 

Not me, I drink new beers 90% of the time.

 

I, like the OP, reached out early in my craft beer days and tried everything that looked interesting. As a result, I tried some real dogs. Then I checked the ratings here first and came to the conclusion that if it was rated above 80, I would probably like it; if it was rated above 90, I would definitely like it. That slowed me down considerably. Now I know that any new beer I want to try either has to be new to the distribution area or I have to travel to get it. But every once in a while when I look at the list of beers I've tried, I get nostalgic for one or another. Recently it was Hop Devil. Another factor is freshness. No matter what I want to buy, if it isn't fresh, I pass and look for the freshest stuff instead. Once in a while I get lucky and what I want is fresh or one of the beer guys at my go-to store will see me and say "hey we just got some [pick an IPA] in and it's dated 10 days ago. I run to the cooler and get it.

And a corollary response - I don't like to drink the same beer twice in the same day. Is that the same as ticking? My vote is no.

 

Sounds like you're in a pretty good place. You've found a handful of beers you really like and can easily get and you're enjoying drinking them.

Like many people I guess, I do feel torn when I go to a pub between drinking a beer I know I like and one I've not tried yet. I guess the solution is to go to the pub more!

 

You need to tick early on in your beer journey to figure out what styles and taste profiles appeal to you. Once you figure out what appeals to you, you'll likely zero in on what you like, both in old favorites and new beers.

 

Have to say, when I got beer karma points for every beer, I was ticking like crazy. Now that the system has changed and I just passed 500 beers, 750 seems so far away to get more points I've really become demotivated. Back to drinking the favs.