The Year in Beer: Breaking Down 2019

I know SN makes an effort to make a solid Oktober Marzen year to year. But I'd love to see more American breweries make an honest effort to make some high end Hef/Dunkel weizens, I am almost getting bored with IPAs.

I think Live Oak's Hef has been the heavy weight out of the states for many a moon.

 

Please bring back the Belgian beer fest! Always wanted to go, maybe a trip to the east coast would be in order...

 

Any consideration on hosting a beer event outside of Boston? Philadelphia, Chicago or Denver may be easier to reach for a broader group of posters.

Loved the article and stats, I have many pending beers and places to add, need to start tomorrow.

 

This is awesome. thanks for sharing. I am going to refocus myself away from IPAs. vote with your wallet and all that

 

A lot of this is fairly unsurprising, if not a little sad....BUT, whatever, it's the direction it's going and it'll go other directions as well. It's the nature of things and I'm eager to see where it goes in the future. Spoiler alert: Hazy IPAs and Pastry Stouts won't be the trendy thing forever, and in the meantime there are many good beers to enjoy cheers to a good year for beer!

 

Belgian Beer Fest Chicago, we can dream!

 

Hmm, wasn't this just being discussed somewhere?
@zid @AlcahueteJ

 

“Our numbers include contact brewers / beer marketing companies and breweries with multiple locations.”

I'm a little confused by this. If one contract brewery makes beer for five different labels does that count as 1, 5, or 6 “breweries”?

Ditto on the app, 90+% of my usage is on my phone
+1 on the Belgian Fest

 

@Todd You should hold a fest in Seattle's Fremont/Ballard neighborhood. There's at least a dozen SOLID breweries in stumbling distance down there as well as some really good gastropubs. I'd even let fellow BAs stay at my place and or camp on my 1/3 acre yard.

 

I'm sure the Places reviews have taken a dive as well. I know there was a thread about that on another forum, would still like that to be a focus going forward. Maybe something else an "app" can help with?

 

I know, right? It’s a good thing I actually liked one of them.

 

I adore this site. I've been an active member for 7 years, and have learned so much from it. However, there are a few things that have caused me to look elsewhere for beer information, and I'd love to see them addressed by this site:

Lack of beer photos - Not only is it very difficult to add a photo to a beer listing, there is only one. Before I drink/buy/or trade for a beer, I like to take a look at it - Bottle shape, color, viscosity, etc.

Lack of specific beer information - When adding a beer, you have to go back and edit the listing to add a description of the beer. What's in it, aging time, etc. The approval process is sometimes lengthy, and most of the beers do not have notes that tell you anything about it. As someone who has added almost 1,100 beers to this site, I would love to see the ability to add notes to the listing while adding it.

Lack of ratings - Just like we look at Yelp before going to a restaurant, I sometimes like to look at the ratings/reviews of other before making a purchase. Obviously, taste is subjective, but I like to read about mouthfeel, viscosity, etc. Clearly, an app would help drive more traffic to rate beers, but the lack of beer feedback can cause me to look elsewhere.

Overall, BA is amazing, and if it stayed as is, I'd still love it.

 

Right, but the next part of it says...

"I’m guessing this number is a bit lower as we added New England IPA (6,909) as a style last year and some beers have yet to be recategorized. Same with American Imperial IPA (4,726)."

If you scroll through the American IPA category, as Todd says, you'll see some that need to be recategorized. And New England IPA was only added as a specific style sometime last year. I imagine 2020 will be a completely different story, with the "New England" style dominating new beers added.

59% of the IPAs added this year weren't like Sierra Nevada's 40th Anniversary Ale (meaning they weren't in the "American IPA" category. Without recategorizing, 11,635 IPAs are in the New England style and/or are Imperial (I'm assuming some of the Imperials are probably New England style as well, and haven't been recategorized).

It's not wrong to say we didn't need another IPA and that they're still everywhere, but at the very least in my area, the 40th Anniversary Ale isn't a common profile for an IPA. And again, I'm of course IN New England, so it makes sense they're ubiquitous here.

 

@Todd
Re: "Our community needs more international users and their voices."

Agreed.

I would recommend reviewing the non-US forums for regions that could benefit from further break-down, or sortable discussion tags, more useful to local users. For example, Canada is covered by a single forum, but it's very large and beer/brewery availability varies a lot. Local beer news from Nova Scotia is probably little use to someone in British Columbia and vice versa. The usefulness of the forums is limited to them. (@Coronaeus, @TheDoctor ).

All of Asia is covered by a single forum too.

I understand you probably need more of a plan and promotion than the Field of Dreams approach...

...but if there's not much here for people when they come it's unlikely they will stick around waiting for something to be built. And I do understand it's far easier for me say these things than for it to actually be done.

 

I like Untappd's community-sourced photo system and could imagine something similar here, although I'm sure it requires significantly more moderation/review efforts and host server space.