Your beer catalog

I've rated 2,487 on here since October 2007. This is by no means every new beer I've tried since then but I'll bet it is 80%. This is the only place I have ever cataloged my beers. I have had the goal of getting to 2,500 for a couple of years and I'll make it soon. That'll be satisfying.

 

Hard to say, and more likely I just remember having it or remember having gone to the brewery years ago than actually being familiar with the taste. I do plan on going to Brooklyn Brewery in a week or so. I used to have their beers a lot 10-15 years ago but not at all recently. Maybe I’ll remember them in that way.

 

My taste preferences haven't changed much in the last 40 years or so. I can tell whether I enjoy a beer as much as I had previously. To detect more subtle taste drift takes more intake than I can tolerate at my age. In the case of legacy brands (ABInbev, MillerCoors, Yuengling), I don't regularly drink them and don't expect them to taste like they did in the distant past. I'd expect enjoyment to go from maybe tolerable to not tolerable. In some cases craft beers change due to style shift by the brewer. Also, some craft beers purchased by big companies don't seem to hold up well. Of concern to me is the loss of favorite beers due to a shift from traditional styles.

 

Pre-BA i took notes in a little notebook and then moved onto an excel spreadsheet with notes and pictures. When i joined BA, i tried to write most of what i had down, but probably only got like 75% of them in. I can't believe I used to have the energy to put beer pics in an excel spreadsheet lol.

I'd say now I probably review like 90% of new beers on here and the other 10% i'm just too lazy

 

All this talk of spreadheets reminded me; I used to keep a detailed spreadsheet with numerous tabs: hads, cellared, BA addresses, what was beermail, the BIF hints and hauls, etc. Then some personal shit happened and I cut back on my BA visits and drinking in general. Then after that my laptop took a shit too.
Basically, I use my phone and the spreadsheet is all but lost.

 

When I joined one was able to rate a beer and a sign a number to it without the five categories. I joined so that I could start doing that. That led to caring about ticking. I started on Untappd later. I started drinking craft beer in 1989. I’ve always liked trying new beers, so I’m assuming I’ve had a couple thousand that aren’t logged in here.

 

I have reviewed about 99% of the new beers I've tried since 2017. From 2014, when I joined BA, to 2017 I kept a notebook of new beers I tried. I wasn't confident enough to review or even rate here. From high school in the early 90's through 2014, I probably tried hundreds of beers. Most of those are lost to time. Everything from all the Ice and red beers of the 90's (Old Milwaukee Red, Pabst Ice, Colt 45 Ice etc...) to Sam Adams Triple Bock, Youngs Old Nick and Heineken Tar-we-bock. My BA beer count stands at 1572, but is easily over 2000. I just don't trust my memory enough to go back and rate or review from nostalgia.

 

Being among the younger folks here, I've been into beer for less than ten years. I mostly just drank whatever I found interesting, not paying much mind to analyzing it. Then I started working in beer, so I took it more seriously and worked on building my sensory/evaluation skills. I've been doing that for about 3 - 4 years now.

I originally used Instagram to catalog the beers but that became too difficult to sort through; I learned about Untappd which I use to this day to record notes/rating.

On Untappd currently, I'm sitting at 1117 unique beers and I have about 200 on Instagram I haven't migrated over yet. There are few from very early on before Instagram/UT that I took pictures of but I'd say a lot of the beers I had way back are "lost."

I still find UT more convenient for the kind of notes I take but I try to contribute to BA in other ways, like Society, adding beers and the forum, because I feel like it's a good tool for me to learn and interact as a consumer and professional.

 

I think I review about 30% of the beers I drink. My biggest excuse is that I am too "in the moment", so to speak, with either a group of friends or the environment in genearal.
Joined Untapped, but never ticked. I guess I rely on my memory of what beers I have had, but I'm absoulutey sure my memory is far from perfect.
On a different note, my wife and I maintain a Google spread sheet of brewries with visit dates. Passed 120 this year, despite Covid. It's basically a hobby at this point. Austin Beercation here we come at the end of this month.

 

I came across BeerAdvocate a long time ago and started reviewing beers as a way to try to learn how to write beer reviews - that was my goal.

It was helpful to me because I could see what other people had already written about a beer and I'd try to find those same flavor and aroma notes in the beer. After a while I gained confidence and experience and I could pick things out on my own.

At the time I'd probably tasted around 500 different beers, which was actually a lot at the time as there weren't that many beers out there.

I don't review every beer that I drink as sometimes you just want to enjoy the moment uniterrupted, and sometimes the beer just doesn't seem worthy which probably throws my histogram off a little bit.

One of the benefits of learning to taste beer is that you're actually learning to pay attention to and properly taste everything that you eat. That's been a huge benefit for me all around.

 

I stared reviewing more recently in 2019, and it has been a journey since I've been here. Currently I've reviewed 858 beers, which I find pretty good for two years in. I've learned a lot, but more often humbled a lot at how much I don't know and continue to learn. I primarily drinks lagers/pilsners and IPAs, but festbiers and porter/stouts during the colder seasons.
My entire catalog in on BeerAdvocate. I really don't see the utility of Untapped. BeerAdvocate also tracks your beers, but allows you to write a review and respond to others. At least for now, I am okay with all of my reviews being cataloged on this site.

 

I have a spreadsheet on my computer of all the beers I have tried. I use Untappd to catalog when I'm out then add them to the spreadsheet when I get home.

 

When my kids had grown and I had more time and money, I started expanding my beer universe. I found BA’s ratings often agreed with my personal opinion on beers. I lurked for a bit but then joined up and started reviewing beers and enjoyed it. I also enjoy the general sense of community and have fun from the site.

Now, I would say I review about 90% of the new beers I try. I often use notes kept on my phone to better appreciate my time at new breweries and the company I have when there.

 

Another younger user checking in here. I would say 90-95% of the new beer I try is catalogued here on BA, the only ones not on here being from getting random beers at bars/taprooms. Mostly when I'm with friends, if I take a trip alone I'll probably review it, though more brief than my other reviews. I love BA as a tool to track all my beers, but I also have a note on my computer/phone of current beer inventory, including quantity and location (fridge, storage, cellar, etc). I too love data, and keeping track of everything keeps me sane and just gives me something to do. Maybe that speaks more to issues than my sanity, but what do I care? I just like talking and learning about beer

 

I joined the party way too late.
West Coast IPAs were very popular when I began drinking "Craft Beer" in or around 2016.
Stone, Lagunits, Sierra Nevada were some of my firsts.
This is my only beer site and my only data base. I have saved the paper templates I used to write reviews. Cheers/Prost.

 

All of the beer reviews / notes I have ever taken are on here. Sometimes (like yesterday), I take notes on paper, and later enter them as reviews on BA (which I'm about to do).

I also use Untappd, but to me it's very secondary. I know I have some checkins that are on Untappd that are not on BA because sometimes I'll check in a beer when I'm in a social situation, but I'll rarely write notes.

I would guess my BA reviews represent roughly 80% of the beers I have tried in my life.

 

All the beers I drank 1974-2011. are a mere memory (or long forgotten). I've logged every new beer for the last 10 years, save the time spent with rowdy friends back in England's pubs. I started on Untapped a couple years ago, mainly because my English mates were moaning they couldn't see what I was drinking. The concept of simply opening an account on BA to follow me there was beyond the lazy gits.

 

Maybe some day but it's already a bit of work migrating from Instagram to Untappd. Also I feel like a lot of my notes prior to mid-2019 aren't very useful on this platform as my sensory vocabulary and ability were much more limited then; moving those to Untappd is more for the check-in and reminder to revisit them someday.