Day 91 – One Quarter of the Way Home

Week 13! One fourth of a year! Three months down! Woo hoo!

As is my habit, let's review a few key stats, shall we?

175 different beers sampled. That's exactly one third of the way through the quest in terms of beer. It equates to 13.5 beers a week, which is 45 beers or 4.5 weeks ahead of schedule. At this rate, I will sample more than 700 beers at the end of the year...assuming I can find that many to sample.

To date I have spent almost $290 or $1.65 per beer. My average rating given is 2.94. The average ratebeerian average for the same beers is 3.07.

In the beginning, I was worried about being too conservative with my ratings, but now I'm completely comfortable with my skill as a rater. I've seen too many ratebeerians give a high rating to a beer they profess to hate.

My highest rating was a 4.0 to Bell's Oberon. Okay, maybe that was a homey call. My next highest rating was a 3.9 for Big Sky's Moose Drool Brown Ale. I have seven different brews at 3.8.

My lowest rating was 0.8 to Shipyard's Fuggles IPA. The next lowest was Sierra Nevada's Torpedo Extra IPA at 1.1 (that, by the way, had an average ratebeerian score of 3.8, which perfectly illustrates the hophead crowd I'm up against). At 1.5 was A-B's Wild Blue. At 1.6 was Dogfish Head's 90 Minute Imperial IPA. The 90 minutes refers to how long you can possibly nurse this paint thinner before you cry uncle and pour it down the drain.

I could be wrong about that.

If you happen to notice that three of the bottom four were IPA's, you can probably guess why there aren't any more IPA's on the list.

I've tasted more amber ales (22) than any other style. Not that it's my favorite style, but it certainly is up there. It's just that there have been a lot of amber ales to choose from. The average rating for this style is 2.83, with the highest at 3.7 (Eel River Amber Ale) and the lowest at 1.6 (Stone's Levitation Amber Ale). Other good ones of this style include Widmer Brothers Drop Top Amber Ale, New Belgium's Fat Tire, and Oak Creek's Amber Ale. Others to avoid include Deschutes Green Lake Organic Ale, Nimbus Red Ale, and Breckenridge Avalanche Amber.

Brown ales, wheat ales, and German hefeweizens are tied for the next most tasted style. Interestingly enough, they received the highest average ratings, with 3.25, 3.22, and 3.53 respectively. That doesn't surprise me since I could have told you those are my favorite styles. What did surprise me was that the Premium Bitter/ESB style (7 ratings for an average of 3.03) scored higher than the Belgium White style (8 ratings for an average of 2.99). I would have guessed the other way around by a large margin.

In spite of the name, premium bitter/esb beers are actually well balanced and smooth. The best were Wychwood Hobgoblin (3.3), Bass Ale (3.2), and Redhook ESB (3.2). I wasn't too fond of Old Speckled Hen and Fullers ESB, both very expensive. For the money, go with Bass or Redhook.

For Belgium White, go with Blue Moon (3.4) or Belgium's Mothership Wit (3.3). Avoid Alaskan's White Ale like the plague.

For brown ales, go with Moose Drool, Lost Coast's Downtown Brown, Santa Fe Nut Brown Ale, or Nimbus Brown Ale. Stay away from Newcastle Brown Ale. Not good.

For wheat ales, there's Oberon, Breckenridge's Agave Wheat, North Coast's Blue Star, and New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat. Big Sky's Trout Slayer Ale was not one to remember.

For German hefeweizens, they're all good and none that were bad. If it's an imported hefeweizen from Germany, you can't make a bad choice. Ayinger and Erdinger are two of the best, but Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Konig, and Weihenstephaner are not far behind. From right here in the good ol' US of A, try Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat or Sierra Nevada's Kellerweis.

Rounding out the top styles include fruit beers (12 for 2.78), American pale ales (9 for 2.74), golden ales (5 at 2.66) and pale lagers (5 at 2.12). There have actually been a host of other styles (e.g., kolsch, dortmunder, etc.), but too few of each to be statistically relevant.

On Ratebeer.com, 3300 people have qualified for the 100 Beer Club (100 ratings). I'm 2336 on the list and climbing. If I attain my goal, I would be listed somewhere in the 1100 block. If I maintain this pace, I would be listed in the 900 block.

Everyone needs a goal. Mine is being listed in the top 1000.

Life is good and so is beer!

Fisehatak! That's Arabic and means either "die Yankee scum" or "to your health," depending on your point of view. I didn't think the Arabian people drank alcohol, but then I'm an infidel, so what do I know?

Goal...............524.....365
Progress.........175.......91
Remaining.....349.....274

Day 83 – Week 12 Nearly Down For The Count

Twelve weeks - 84 days - is nearly in the books. It is one week shy of a fourth of the way home. The good news is that I'm 30% of the way through the beers. That is 159 beers tasted. That's forty beers (more or less) ahead of schedule or four weeks. I'm on cruise control right now and breezing along.

I am still finding some stinkers, of course, but I've also found some real gems. I'll skip the stinkers, but here are some of the real gems. The first is called Moose Drool Brown Ale (you gotta love the name!) from Big Sky Brewing Company out of Montana. This is every bit as good as the best brown ales I've ever had. It is so smooth and well balanced that you'll wonder if your taste buds are deceiving you. I am definitely buying more Moose Drool! Another one is Buster Nut Brown Ale from SKA Brewing. Not as good as Moose Drool, but Buster Nut is close. A third brown ale that is right up there with Moose Drool, however, is a local fave called Nimbus Brown Ale from Nimbus Brewery (those marketing guys are pretty clever, huh?). Very good brown ale.

Some other good ones include a Scottish Ale from Odell Brewing called 90 Shilling and a Heller Bock from Rogue Ales called Dead Guy Ale (those marketing guys are pretty clever, huh?). The best of the bunch, however, is an imported German Hefeweizen (from Germany, of course) called Erdinger Weissbier. That was expensive, but well worth the money. Man, was it good!

Of course, I did hit the imports the last week or so. I've just about exhausted the 12 oz American Microbrews. The good news is that there are plenty of good ones left in the larger sizes. The bad news is that I'm going to be paying twice as much for them, so my plan is to buy a few of the larger American brews and the rest imports, which aren't cheap, but aren't bad compared to the larger sizes. That will soften the financial impact of my strategy.

I'm still not 100% confident I'll hit the 524 mark, but I look at it this way. I'm having fun, I'll come close, and I'll have a large list of beers from which to purchase in quantity down the road. To date I have 90 that are above average, two thirds of which I would buy on a regular basis. I have expanded my horizons beer-wise beyond which I would have otherwise and had a great time doing it. Nothing about this is a failure or disappointment, regardless of whether I achieve the end goal or not.

Life is good and so is beer!

Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret! That's Danish for " Bottoms up or the rest in your hair." I'm not sure I want to know what that means exactly.

Goal...............524.....365
Progress.........159.......83
Remaining.....365.....282