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