Your 2017 Beer Stats

I am not doing any stats any more. No counting or logging the number of beers I drank or reviewed. I am doing this because there is no number that can describe a person's passion , respect or knowledge. Also because many reviewers use it as a way to imply that their opinion should carry more weight than someone else's opinion. I will review a new beer every sunday and maybe two. Then perhaps more .

 

I've traveled to all of the states (most of them multiple times) but I was never much of a beer drinker (truth be told, I'm still not) and I didn't become interested in craft beer until relatively recently. If I ever undertook this quest, I'd pretty much have to start from scratch.

I did have Coors in Colorado, though.

 

Impressive collection of stats. I reviewed 389 beers in 2017. Hopefully a few fewer in 2018.

 

201 new beers in 2017. still looking for English Pale Mild, Roggenbier, and Happoshu to complete all styles, pretty sure I've had NE IPA's, when they add that one.

 

I have no idea how you guys log in 500+ new beers in a year. It raises some questions

Do you have a job?
Do you travel a lot?

I can’t even find 500 new beers, let alone try them in a year

 

Been a pretty crazy year. My stats:

1,117 new beers
116 new 'locations'
Visited bars/breweries in 5 countries, 10 states
Top styles:
IPA/DIPA - 192
Lambic -163
Saison - 92
Wild Ale - 58

 

Yes, and yes. Lots of weekend trips within 2-3 hours for beer. Also festivals/events/shares help. Monthly shares usually get me 20+ 'ticks' alone, plus add in a handful of events that can add 30+ ticks each, and then there's a whole weekend long event I go to every year where 60+ new ticks is pretty normal by the end of the weekend.

Now, how many new 'full' pours did I have? That number is much much MUCH lower, under a 100 would assume. I'm a dirty rotten ticker...

 

I too am impressed with the OP's detail. I love data and I'm pretty anal about tracking things but..wow. In manufacturing they say that if you measure a process it will improve (by unconscious knowledge of things being tracked). I can't figure how that relates to the OP's drinking, but... maybe?
I myself had to take a break from rating and ticking for most of 2017. I found I couldn't really enjoy the beer if I was documenting it. Its kind of like a job you know. I love beer but I don't get paid to be a "professional" beer drinker. I'm back, rating beers when the environment suits. I probably still don't rate about 40% of new beers I try when I am out and about. I am enjoying the beer, the people and the surroundings more, even if I don't have a record of it.

 

I ended up reviewing ~450 beers this year.

My second highest rated beer ever came early, within 2 weeks of the start of 2017 (Abraxas). In fact, I consumed most of my top beers the first 6 months this past year. I'll credit that to me trading more for specific beers and doing more local-for-local trades, and being more attentive when shopping. In 2016, I was reviewing a lot of beers out of mixed six packs.

No way I want to know how much money I drank last year.

I will focus a little bit more on reviewing places this year; however, I tend to not visit many bars, and have only a handful of regular stores I visit. So I don't see that number creeping up much.

I work full time and train for athletics another 11-12 hours a week. Outside of work and sports, I tend to visit a beer store 1-2 times a week and focus on picking up something new every visit. It's really easy to reach a higher number when you do mix six packs. When I trade, a lot of my trades center around a single beer or two, and then some mixed six packs. I honestly look forward more to the latter than I do the highly rated beer that initiated the trade. I don't do bottle shares, but I know some folks tick dozens of beers in a single setting in events like that.

It's also worth mentioning that I rarely revisit a beer. I bought a case of Mocha Merlin this year, but outside of that, I rarely even buy a standard 6 pack. I find a lot of joy in coming home from work and trying a new beer or two. And if the new beer is gross? I pour it out and grab a stand-by Mocha Merlin, or a summer-time IPA.

EDIT: keep tweaking this, but it's also worth mentioning that I'm rather new to this whole beer thing. When you're just a couple years into it, there is still a LOT of new beer out there to try. It's a lot easier for me to get a mix six with six new-to-me beers than a more seasoned reviewer.

 

If you are retired and have the resources to travel a lot and visit breweries (see my post #14) you can drink many new beers. Usually it is a sampler-sized beer, but it's still a beer. .

 

Just looking at my BA stats I had 373 new beers in 2017. No idea how many total beers I had nor any sense of the cost, thank heavens. I barely trade anymore and my main drinking partner (my wife) has been pregnant for nearly seven months now, but I still managed to spend an absurd amount of money on this thing of ours...

I only wrote 51 reviews this year, pushing me well over 1000 in my BA career, but regrettably the rest were simple ticks/ratings. Top rated was Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise at 4.79 (believe it was a 2014?), lowest was modelo especial at 2.98. That surprises me, I guess I did really well at avoiding the stinkers this year. Looks like I only rated 27 new places, although I definitely went to a lot more - I've been lazy in that respect.

Been stuck on 99 styles for a while since I haven't been making much of an effort to complete the list. A gruit will be easy enough to find and I can always spring for a bier de champagne but that Happoshu is another story.

 

Ordering flights is key. Also, having fifteen new breweries open every three months kinda helps

 

872 total beers
383 distinct (what can I say, I buy a lot of 4 packs)

7.5% bottled, 37.6% canned, 31.6% draft

14.2% from Connecticut (The state I live/work in during the week)
40.2% from Massachusetts (The state I live in during the weekend)
74.2% from New England

54.1% were IPAs (whoops)

Most Checkins:
1) Focal Banger - The Alchemist
2) In Perpetuity - Tree House
3) SNPA
4) Swish - Bissel Brothers
5) DDH Congress Street - Trillium

Most Checkins by Brewery:
1) Trillium Brewing Company - 172
2) Tree House Brewing Company - 101
3) The Alchemist - 30
4) Back East Brewing Company - 25
5) Hill Farmstead Brewing Company - 21

 

And I thought I liked beer! Well done sir, helluva list!

 

1477 Unique Beers in 2017.

I have a group of friends that get together often to share beers. I also travel a lot.

I drank a lot of great beers this year.
Some standouts were SP Tete Cuvee b2, Hand of Glory, DDH Ghost in the Machine, Zenne, 2007 LPK, Bourbon Paradise, Henna b1, Aaron 2016.

I visited 20 new (to me) breweries in 2017.

 

I track beer by volume, state, %, and type. 12 oz. = one beer. I had 276.5 beers in 2017. When it comes to the # of beers, there is some rounding. If I have a 22 ouncer, I would count that as 2.

• I do track half beers (so if I split a 12 oz., that is 0.5)
• I don't count sips I take from other people's beers or small samples. I'm not really a ticker
• Pints are a problem. Count as 1 or 1.5? The compromise is this: pints at home are 1.5, pints in a bar are 1 (the thought is that these will even out, plus the bar pints seem to be mostly shorter than 16 oz.)
• Some stats lump together different sub-categories (e,g, stout + imperial stout + milk stout etc.)
• I hardly ever rate beers so I don't track ratings

276.5 beers (by 12 oz. volume increments)

States
WI 48.6%
OH 7.2% (all Great Lakes)
CA 7.1% (mostly SN)
MI 6.5% (mostly Bell's)
Other 10.7% (9 other states)

Countries
Germany 9.9%
Dominica 3.3% (took a vacation there)
Belgium 2.7%
England 1.8%
Dominican Repub. 1.1%
U.S. Virgin Islands 0.7%
Canada 0.4%

Styles
IPA 17.0%
Lager 15.7% (mostly NG Two Women, Great Lakes Eliot Ness/Dortmunder Gold, and Kubuli)
Oktoberfest 6.1%
Pils 6.0%
Stout 5.1%
Hefeweizen 4.9%
Kellerbier/Zwickel 4.5%
Gueuze/Lambic/Wild 4.3%
Everything else 36.4% (31 other styles)


Most Common Breweries (by volume)
New Glarus 26%
Central Waters 7%
Great Lakes 7%
Sierra Nevada 5%


Most Common Specific Beers (by 12 oz. beers):
NG Hometown Blonde 11
Bell's Two Hearted 11
Lakefront IPA 10.5
NG Two Women 9.5
Kubuli 9
Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold 9


Too many highlights to single any out. Cheers!

 

^^^^ That's a nice spread of styles among those huge stats. ^^^^