Friday, January 08, 2016

My 2015 in Beer: Top 5 Beers, Top Bars and Venues

Apart from being a lover of books, I've also long been a lover of beer.

And in the past 10 years or so, I've enjoyed making an effort at trying new beers. But it got to a point where I couldn't remember if I'd had a beer or not, so about 3 years ago (April 2013), I started using UNTAPPD to track my beer.
Fun beer explorations near Kelowna, BC
I'm far from a connoisseur (ie, I'm not all that good at describing the various flavours, and mostly just either "like" or "don't like so much" the beers I'm drinking) and I quite enjoy trying new beers and also the recent rise of craft breweries that have been exploding in the past couple of years.

I also try not to check in the same beer more than once. But occasionally, for the sake of checking in a beer at an interesting or new location, or for changing my rating of a beer (perhaps, upon second or third taste, I change my perception of the beer), I'll check in more than one.

Here's a look at my beer tracking as pulled from UNTAPPD, for 2015.
  • I tried 789 unique beers in 2015
  • I enjoyed them at 120 unique venues
  • I averaged 3 beers per day in the year
Some other interesting stats:

My Top (Combination of rating plus number of times checked in) Beers drank in 2015 include:





In 2015 I gave 61 different beers a rating of 4.5 or higher (out of five stars) and gave 6 of them a five star rating. The 6 five star rating beers in 2015 were:




The lowest rated beer from 2015 was one called Double IPA from Stoudts Brewing Company, which I gave 1.5 stars to and left this comment: "I'm not fond of the nail polish remover aftertaste."

Among the most popular and favourite venues I checked in this past year include:
I also attended a number of beer fests throughout the year -- and, my beautiful partner in beer-enjoyment and I were able to not only get to a number of them together, but also did some amazing explorations of beer locales within Southern Ontario, in and near Kelowna, BC as well as in various neighbourhoods in New York City. Liz and I have even more fun plans regarding our beer explorations this coming year which I will be posting about at a later date.  (Of course, our other plans for 2016 involve doing an extreme race together, a lot more hiking than we accomplished in 2015, and even more great walking tours of various cities that we travel to together - that should help reduce the somewhat negative effect of enjoying our favourite beverage so often)

Liz and I at Because Beer in Hamilton - Summer 2015


My totals, for UNTAPPD, to date (and which started April 6, 2013) include 1,831 unique beers and 669 badges (yes, UNTAPPD does a great job of the gamification of social beer drinking). I'm pretty sure that I'll get to 2,000 unique check ins before the end of the year, and, based on previous trending, I should hit about 1900 by time the end of January rolls around.

Of course, I also have writing goals.

Now, if ONLY my goals of writing and enjoying beer could ever be merged some-how. Hint Hint - news on that to come.


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