Hello All,
Today I posted my one-thousandth beer review. Special thanks to everyone in this community - I don't yet know any of you, and I think that's a shame. With that in mind, here's my first forum post.
I think this is a good time to do some thinking and evaluation of my beer life. Here are a few high level topics that I'd like to have in mind:
* Education
* Scaling down
* Giving back
* Breweries
* Traveling
* Advice
# Education
I'm interested in learning a bit more. I don't want to spend a bunch of money; and I don't have much value in certifications, but I might look at free courses, or pay for guided tastings.
I've previously done some kit brews. I liked it, but I don't think I'm ready to commit to getting more equipment and brewing more seriously. Equally, I don't see too much educational value in more kit brews.
# Scaling down
As part of this I'd like to drink less beer or spend less money on ethanol. Maybe I'll start counting UK units and follow recommended weekly numbers.
Sours, berliners, and session ales are a good start, but they're pretty ubiquitous right so luckily this might be easy!
# Giving Back
Generally, I plan to be part of the beer community a bit more. I'm also interested in a RBWG/RBSG.
I'm a software engineer with a fair breadth of knowledge. What's worth contributing on? I think the ratebeer app (and Eric's app), along with the ratebeer website are all closed source, is that right? I'm happy to do some white-hat pentesting, if nothing else.
In the end, I only want to spend a few hours on this, so I want to optimise my time to be as useful to the community as possible in this aspect.
# Breweries
In 2018 I look forward to trying more of (in no particular order):
* Redchurch
* Nogne O
* Thornbridge
* Jester King
* Green Flash
* Russian River
* Dugges
# Traveling
In 2016-17 I had the chance to try quite a few beers while traveling.
Coming up, I'm going to: Hungary, and Thailand. Anything unmissable?
I'd like to make it to Louisiana, Texas, and San Diego next year but don't have solid plans yet.
# Advice
Experts: what have you learned since your #1000? What am I doing wrong? Any advice?
You probably can't give me advice without knowing what I want. I want to appreciate social beer without investing more time or money as I presently am. I think that means doing something different - that's where (I hope) you come in.
What's worth getting in to?
I think my tasting notes have tended towards "crystal malt, early hops, floral notes" instead of "properties of honey and caramel, dry bitterness, and flavors of rose/perfume". Is that a bad thing? I'm interested in people's opinions on these two ways of reviewing beer.
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Anyway, thanks again everyone, and hello!
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Congrats and welcome!
As long as you're having fun, you're "doing it right." |
Congrats and welcome. Pretty similar situation to you myself actually, I don't know anyone here but recently made an effort to post a bit in the forums, it's a bit cliquey in places but harmless fun nonetheless, you'll enjoy it.
My 1000th was mere months ago so can't really say I've learned much (if anything) since then. Anyway I don't have comments for all of your points, but on the giving back thing... like you I am also a software engineer and yeah the site and everything is all closed. Joe did ask for beta testers for the official mobile app though, on both iOS and Android, not sure where that thread is or if they even want/need more testers but something to keep an eye out for.
I would also suggest using the "send corrections" link whenever you spot incorrect details. Apparently there's a huge backlog right now though. I'm submitting a decent amount of corrections fairly often, the vast majority of which never have anything done about, but if only one of them gets approved then it's something to help at least, inaccuracy annoys me so I do what I can to fix it, and since I have a huge amount of free time as of late I spend most of it on beer websites like this.
Beer festivals and bottle shares will help you to try more beer without spending loads of money on sourcing bottles of everything yourself.
Tasting notes... no it's not a bad thing. Everyone has their own style. Pick any random beer and scroll through the reviews, some post basic notes similar to what you've described, some post super detailed lengthy reviews with highly specific flavour descriptors, others are in between. It really doesn't matter as long as you're giving an honest review based on what you tasted.
So yeah, if you're having fun you're doing it right.
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Welcome and congratulations! As far as the travel part goes, I could give you some good Thailand tips, but your best bet is to get in touch with Jmgreenuk who knows the Bangkok craft beer scene best here. Have fun and enjoy! |
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Welcome to RateBeer. I think everyone can relate to your experiences when they first started rating beers here and I'm sure you'll get some useful feedback. Personally I've learnt a lot through trying a varied range of beer, reading books such as Garret Oliver's 'The Brewmaster's Table' and generally by chatting to others at tastings, and discussing the beer and breweries.
Out of interest, where are you based? If anywhere near the West Midlands, UK I've arranged tastings with RateBeer royalty such as RichTheVillan, SarkyNortherner and Blackhaddock, all of which I'm sure would welcome you into the local brethren.
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Welcome! This is a great thread. Thanks for being a member of the community.
We are planning some dev work in React as our new code base (currently ASP). We're closed source but I'd be happy to consider various ways for others to contribute. I believe we're working on an open source voice app soon as well.
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Hungary? Spend every single night at élesztő in Budapest. There are other solid bars to visit, but élesztő is world-class. |
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Your ratings are pretty good reads |
@blipp
> As long as you're having fun, you're "doing it right."
That's about what I thought. Thanks for the encouragement.
@LazyPyro
Good to meet you.
> I would also suggest using the "send corrections" link whenever you spot incorrect details. Apparently there's a huge backlog right now though.
Hmm, sounds like there needs to be better infrastructure for accepting or declining edits, if there's a big backlog.
I'm assuming that process is all done manually?
@kermis
> Welcome and congratulations! As far as the travel part goes, I could give you some good Thailand tips, but your best bet is to get in touch with Jmgreenuk who knows the Bangkok craft beer scene best here. Have fun and enjoy!
Thanks, I've sent Jmgreenuk a message, but I'm interested in your suggestions too if you have any.
@minutemat
Thanks for the book suggetion, I've added it to my read list. I'm based in London area these days so probably too far to make your bottle share, unfortunately. Cheers for the invite, though.
@joet
> Welcome! This is a great thread. Thanks for being a member of the community.
Thanks!
> We are planning some dev work in React as our new code base (currently ASP). We're closed source but I'd be happy to consider various ways for others to contribute. I believe we're working on an open source voice app soon as well.
A voice app? Not sure how that relates to rating beer. I don't know of any way to contribute to an ASP/react project without looking at source code. Is there a public API for ratebeer that developers can write over the top? If not, does the ratebeer ToS "allow" people to scrape/spoof the web interface?
If there's no API at all, it will be hard to form any sort of basis for community projects/tools, apart from a few random bits like pentesting.
@adamnowek
> Hungary? Spend every single night at élesztő in Budapest. There are other solid bars to visit, but élesztő is world-class.
Excellent, thanks for the suggestion. I will go there 100% now.
@Gary - cheers!
Thanks again all, I appreciate the responses. |
About Bangkok, a must for me was Chit Beer, the origination of Thai craft beer. Fat Cow was also one of my favorites in more central Bangkok. Check out my (and others) place reviews on these. There's loads of fairly decent bars offering similar selections of imports but for me the local stuff is more fun to try. Nearly a year since my last trip there though so Jmgreenuk will certainly have more recent info. Things change fast over there! |
