Thursday, September 4, 2014

Coda

It must seem the height of vanity to return, essentially a year later, to an abandoned blog and address a waiting public that likely doesn't exist.

But I will. Partly because I like closure, and partly because I like hearing myself talk, I'll wrap up this blog with a final post here explaining why I don't review beer anymore.

Reason #1) can be summarily described in this post. As much as I claimed when I started this that my tasting notes were for myself moreso than for anyone else, it seems disingenuous to put this level of detail into something and then claim that I don't expect anyone else to read it, much less be influenced by it. And since taste is so subjective and since I, myself, found my preferences becoming more distilled over time (more on this later) I started feeling like kind of a fraud for reviewing beers I might not have even tried otherwise just for the sake of variety. That does a disservice to anyone reading that review and taking my opinion as some kind of expert's.

Reason #2) has to do with my personal taste; namely, that while it probably has never been a secret to anyone who has read any of my reviews that IPAs are my favorite style, they're the majority of what I drink now. My drinking priorities used to be to try to find anything that was rated highly and/or sought after so that I could try and review it for myself, and if I couldn't do that, just try anything that I hadn't had before, and then FINALLY with those two options exhausted, to just drink something I knew I liked. What a pretentious way to drink beer, don't you think? In the first place, to allude back to Reason 1 and the linked article, crowdsourced ratings are, at best, an imprecise way to determine what I'd like. For example, despite these beers being routinely lauded, I rarely prefer barrel-aged stouts to other beers. I've reviewed a number of them here, and I appreciate them, but for me, they're not the most pleasure-able beer to just relax and consume. But these beers are so often placed in the Top-Whatever Beers In The World lists, so I felt compelled to try them. And while I still have an astonishing amount of these very heavy, rarely consumed beers in my cellar -- and let's be real, for the majority of craft beer drinkers, "cellar" equates to "Dubiously Insulated Box in the Closet" -- the vast majority of the time, I reach for fresh IPAs that I can't stop myself from buying because that's what I want to drink. And don't get me wrong: I still like trying new beers, particularly if it's a local IPA, but I'm just as happy to order or buy something that I've had and I know I love and will love again.

All of that said, if you're still remotely curious about what I've been drinking and how I feel about it, you're welcome to check out my Untappd feed. In case it hasn't been said a million times, the rankings I'm giving are really just for me, so I can go on Untappd, see if I've had a beer before and if I've liked it. Only if you have found yourself agreeing with me every time should you use my rankings to guide your selections.

So, all together, so long, everyone. Have a beer for me, and enjoy it. Cheers!