Most popular posts of the year

This is an idea I nicked from the Beervana blog. And why not? The internet is a plagiarism paradise.

It turns out the two most popular posts by a very long way are both from 2018. In fact, only four of the posts are from this year.

What does this list tell us? Not very much. Other than that people are very interested in the price of beer. I suppose that's not such a shock. More surprising is that the first recipe is at number nine. And there was me thinking recipes were the most popular of my posts.

Average UK draught beer prices 1973 - 2017
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/01/average-uk-draught-beer-prices-1973-2017.html


Draught beer prices 1939 - 1948
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/12/draught-beer-prices-1939-1948.html


The Dinosaur in the room
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-dinosaur-in-room.html


Why dry hop? (part three)
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/04/why-dry-hop-part-three.html


Coming along nicely
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2023/01/coming-along-nicely.html


Prices and wages 1914 - 1919
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008/11/prices-and-wages-1914-1919.html


Illegal liquor sales in the House of Commons
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/06/illegal-liquor-sales-in-house-of.html


Trends
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2023/02/trends.html


Let's Brew Wednesday - 1956 Tennant's Glucose Stout
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/04/lets-brew-wednesday-1956-tennants.html


Why did you start drinking Lager?
https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2023/04/why-did-you-start-drinking-lager.html

Generic year end post

Yay! It's been another wonderful year in Beerland. Innovation continues unabated, even if it is mostly in the form of pricing and can design.

I've been doing my best to keep up with the times. Several sludge IPAs have passed my lips. If only because I'm not going to waste a beer ordered accidentally. Some fruity sour things, too. But in the acceptable form of Catharina Sours. Usually I wouldn't spit in a kettle sour.

My beer style of the year is Sludge IPA with Fruit and Shit. Which just edged out Kettle Sour with Fruit and Shit. A really close one this year. Not that I drink either on purpose. (See above.)

Best new beer. St. Bernardus Abt. Well they changed the label this year. That makes it new, doesn't it?

Best cask beer. Not having been to the UK much, I've not drunk much of the one true beer. Did have a nice pint of London Pride a couple of weeks back.

Best US beer. Dovetail Helles is hard to beat. But Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on cask did. Why don't they always serve it this way?

Best continental beer. Perhaps a beer you haven't heard of: St. Bernardus Abt. I predict it's going to be big.

Best beer brewed to one of my recipes. Quite a few to choose from here. Goose Island's Black Eagle was pretty tasty. And I've drunk quite a bit of Butcher's Tears Monster Soup SSS. But, just for being very different, I'll have to go with Good Word's Donker Lagerbier, based on a 1930s Heineken recipe. A beer I'd wanted to try for a while. And they gave me free beer all day.

Best beer in an unexpected place. Club Colombia Negra in Cartagena was a very pleasant surprise. Almost like a Dark Mild.

Best beer overall. Bit of a surprise this year. It's St. Bernardus Abt. Who would have guessed that?

Best selection of cask Milds. Can only go to Machine House who had five on when I dropped by in August. 

Best beer festival. After years of running all over Europe chasing festivals, I'm now using these three criteria to determine if one's worth going to.
- Plenty of seats.
- Half litre measures.
- Within walking distance of my home.

I attended both eligible festivals: Pivo and Bayerischer Anstich Fest at Butcher's Tears. Both full of lovely Lager served in a proper measure.

Best pub crawl. An afternoon trawling around Atlanta with Stan was good fun. But best can only go to the fortnight-long pub crawl masquerading as a holiday with the kids. Especially our day in Mexico.

Best Wetherspoons. Not visited that many this year. Of those, the one in Folkestone just edges the others out, as it was the cheapest. Which is how I judge my Spoons.

Best brewpub. Has to be Good Word as they plied me with free beer all day.

Best book has to be Statistical Handbbook 2022. Unhindered by too many words and stuffed full of juicy numbers. Yum!

Best junket is a difficult one. I've been on so many. The year has just been all oysters, caviar and champagne. My Brazil trips were fun, but I had to pay for my own airfare. While Ale Through the Ages at Colonial Williamsburg not only paid all my expenses, I also got a fee! And I did get to geek out for several days with some of my best beer chums.

That's it for another year. Thankfully. Be interesting to see if I've got the energy for this next year.

Quick question

Is this blog acting weird? Do you sometimes get errors when you try to access it?

Someone has reported that they're having problems accessing it.

Most popular posts

Inspired by Boak & Bailey's look at the stats for their blog, I decided to do the same. Not for this year, but all time.

I was surprised to note that four of the most popular were published this year, inlcuding the second most popular of all time. Even weirder, numbers 9 and 10 were posted on the same day in October this year.

post title	date	views
Beer in North Korea	21 Dec 2011	4270
A day with Carlsberg (part one)	3 Sep 2017	3733
A tale of two bars	22 Mar 2012	3225
Grätzer - it's official	5 Mar 2013	3034
A day with Carlsberg (part two)	4 Sep 2017	3027
Let's Brew Wednesday - 1850 Truman Double Stout	23 Dec 2015	2410
When was Brettanomyces discovererd?	29 Jun 2013	2089
Why I don't read beer magazines	30 Jan 2013	2038
I'm number two	7 Oct 2017	1864
German Dunkles in 2014	7 Oct 2017	1791

This is probably as retrospective as I'll be getting as the end of the year approaches. Most my head is already in next year, planning various trips and wondering about which books I should publish. I'm already assembling a list in my head for the latter.

I've several partially complete manuscripts. Which to finish off first? Victory! Vol. II is on the cards. But that could change. I'm also planning new, expanded editions of some existing books.

At the beginning of March the Historic Lager Festival will finally go ahead. I've been trying to get this off the ground for a couple of years.

Lots of collaboration brews planned. And a new dream: getting a range of Warwicks beers on the bar of a former warwicks pub. How difficult could that be? After all, I did get Watney's Red Barrel brewed this year. (And very nice it was, too.)

There's so much to look forward to. Why look back?

Lexie's blog

My son Lexie has just started a blog called be like a rich guy.

Maybe give it a look. I'm trying to encourage him to write.

Quiz

It's summer, we're all bored. Time for a stupid quiz.

I was going to make it "What do I hate Most?". But Dolores thought that was too negative. ("That's rubbish, Ronald. Don't do that." Is what she really said.) Who am I to disagree? And it's too obvious*.

"I like the photo, though."

"OK, let's go with a picture quiz. What do I hate about this picture?"

"Still too negative."

"I know. I'll just think up some ridiculous question to go with the picture."

Where, when, why is this photo?

Any guesses?




* One of my tracks (available nowhere) is called "I hate Arsenal".

Customer service

I've been reading the Northern Snippet blog and wondering if I've ever been one of the annoying type of customer described.

Quite possibly the picky type. Purely when it comes to beer, I'd point out. I'll shovel any old food down as long as it's fried. Or meat. Or some form of potato.

These two entries in  "10 of the most annoying and frequently fielded questions" had both me and Andrew chuckling:

3. 'I have a dairy intolerance what can I have?'
    Protracted conversation .....followed by:
'Excuse me you've forgotten to bring some butter for my bread..'

6.'Is there another menu?'
    What?You mean a secret one that we don't bother to show anyone because we don't want to sell anything on it?

Good stuff.

I'm number two

. . . in the ebuzzing wine and beer blogs rankings for April. It's the highest position I've ever had.

I'm sure it won't last. I can't think up enough shouty posts on a regular basis. You need those to attract attention. Numbers don't work, unfortunately. If they did, I'd be number one every month.

Have any suggestions for what I could shout about this month? Let me know. Otherwise I'll be in for a depressing slip down the rankings in May.

I'm number five!

In the Wikio rankings. I'm so proud.

Can't say I quite understand how they come up with the rankings. A couple of months ago I was in position 20-something. The number of visitors I get hasn't changed appreciably in that time.

If only it meant something in terms of money.

Did I mention my plan? My get-someone-to-pay-me-to-research plan. It's based on optimism and an unreasonable faith in human nature. Surely there must be bearded beery philanthropist somewhere?





Why that image? I just like remembering Shippos.

I wish I'd said that

My blog writer of the year, just for this post:


down with craft beer

Why do I blog?

Time to go all philosophical on you with that eternal question: what's the point in blogging?

I won't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself. The motives of other bloggers I'm sure are as diverse as the blogs themselves. I won't bother trying to guess what they are.

Let's get the kick rolling with what I'm not attempting.

To become a professional beer writer. There's no money in it. Not unless you're prepared to invest the whole of your energy into the attempt. In any case, why should I? My day job pays better than beer writing by several motorways. And I've enough free time after work to write pretty much as much as I want.

To be a journalist. Doesn't interest me at all. That's why I avoid all that news stuff. There's no satisfaction for me in recycling the same press releases and a few hundred others.


To make myself a brand. I'm a man. A free man, not a brand.

To make money. My beer activities cost me money. Quite a bit, if I start adding it up. How much do you reckon 500 books cost?


Now let's kick the roll in the opposite direction. Why do I blog?

Alan told me to. That's really why I started. Alan McCleod wrote "You should start a blog, Ron." So that's what I did. I'm very easily influenced.

To keep track of my material. I've unearthed so much stuff, it's hard to keep in order. The blog is the perfect place to store it.

I enjoy writing. Pretty simple, really. More of an addiction than a hobby. Why else would a person as profoundly lazy as me writes so effing much?

Feedback. Running my ideas past others. Asking questions about the (many) technical details I don't understand.

Memories. My memory of events is notoriously crap. Writing up my travels saves me the bother of trying to remember them. And gives me something to blackmail the kids with in later life.

That's enough navel-gazing for another year or two. Time to return to numbers, charts, obscure texts and low-grade humour.