The all too early but never too soon beer goal setting list for 2019! Here is the link to last years goals…
2018 in Review:
Hit 3,000 rates. (Will need approximately 550. Slowed down a bit lately so this is realistic.) Just made it by about 20 by the end of the year.
Rate all Nebraska Breweries. Again, with new ones opening and distance so far apart, I currently plan to have to try 13 new ones and some would be difficult due to location and hours but possible. With new openings, I still need 9. Not gonna happen.
Hit 500 different breweries. Need 31 more. Very possible if I want to put in some effort. Made it. At 535 so far.
Hit 50 countries. Need 6 more. A bit trickier and would take some traveling or trading. At 49 right now with 2 new countries in my cellar, so counting this as a check.
Finish styles. Still need Sake-Taru and Sake-Honjozo. Again, possible if I do a trade or travel. Didn’t give this much effort. Thought the styles might change on the site but still not change so need these 2 yet
Hit 500 Nebraska rates. Only 33 to go. Super easy. Might have before the end of 2017 haha. Crushed it. At 657 now.
Meet at least one new Ratebeerian. Didn’t meet any new ones but spent time with a few Ratebeerians more frequently. Counting that.
Goals Met: 5 of 7
2019 Goals:
Get as many new unrated styles as possible (assuming the list is ever updated on the site).
Try at least 600 beers (I’ve seemed to slow down a bit from my usual 620+ and didn’t break 600 this year).
Finish Nebraska breweries (Need 9 still and no new ones opening up in the near future).
Get to 100 state rates for Washington, New Hampshire, Missouri. Reach goals would include DC, Texas, and Delaware.
Get five more countries (don’t know how I will do this). Cayman Islands only one I know I will visit.
Visit each NYC brewery that I have not yet (missing Bronx, Kills Boro, Fifth Hammer, Circa, Randolph’s, and maybe a few others).
Drink more than 24 new beers per beer festival… seems like a missed opportunity.
Get past 100 for Sweden… don’t think any others are likely this year unless I get a Russian haul."
(1) Dropped the ball here. Only crept to 100 for Washington. However, cruised past a 100 for Texas and Florida, so that is a plus. I am in the DC metro area right now, so theoretically might make it to 100 for DC if I try very hard.
(2) Huge success on this front. Thanks to some trades with, I got Angola, Macedonia, Reunion, Montenegro, Malaysia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bermuda. Thanks to random finds in NYC, I got Wales, Jordan and Hungary. Thanks to my wife I got Georgia. And thanks to me I got Cayman Islands. I also have Rwanda and Samoa waiting for me in the cupboard thanks to trades with two ratebeerians!
(3) I did visit most breweries in NYC but still have not gone to Bronx Brewery. So failure here.
(4) To my wife’s chagrin, I succeeded here all too well.
(5) I succeeded with Sweden. I am seven short of a 100 for Russia and two short with Mexico. Mexico was totally doable, but I dropped the ball. I can still probably make it happen if I find two awful Mexican beers in bodegas…
2019 Goals:
105 countries. I will be at 100 with two beers in my cabinet, so five pas that.
Get to 100 in Mexico and Russia. This should be very easy for Mexico and will hopefully be possible on Russia (especially if I can convince my sister in law to bring some next time she comes). Also, hopefully cruise past a hundo in another country.
Cruise past 100 in 4 more states. This should be doable with DC, Missouri, and if I try, should be able to happen in NH or Ohio or something.
Meet another one of yous. Met three Ratebeerians last year, so should happen easily if any one of you are around.
Continue contributing, adding beers, And sending corrections.
Improve H Index: this will probably happen if my wife and I go to Finland and Estonia.
Currently at 990 ratings for the year, so pretty clearly short on this. I did some traveling too, so I bet I’m at like 800 California beers for the year.
Rate some damn places. Get to 300 total (currently at 212).
At 219. Fail.
Visit Tijuana and rate some beers.
Fail
Five homebrew batches.
I started brewing mead! One full batch, one split batch that I’ll count as 2, and one more planned before the end of the year. I’m calling this a win.
Buy zero bombers/750s.
I bought a 1.5 liter of Anchor Christmas, but it was only $13 and I re-used the bottle for home-brew. I’m calling this a win.
Don’t pay over $1/ounce for any beer.
Ehh, I probably splurged at Modern Times for some of their flavoured stouts. I’m ok with doing this on a few occasions, but it’s still the exception to the rule.
Stay on top of my very local places and make sure all new beers get added/rated.
Coud have done better, but I’m like 75% up to date.
Enter the top 100 raters (currently at 108).
Currently at 105. Backlog would put me at 104.
Rate something over 4.5 (highest this year was 4.3).
2018: #1 rater of Surrey beers and breweries. Get into decent figures for Hampshire and Berkshire. Tick - #1 for Surrey ticks. Big Smoke are moving from Greater London to Surrey. Was concerned about my ranking but I’ll still be 2 up and have a couple of bottles in the stash. #1 for breweries - 2 left but they’re both Commisioners with obscure distribution, assuming both are still operating. Berkshire #20 for ticks and will move up a couple of places still as I have 8 in the stash. Joint #4 for breweries. Hampshire #9 for ticks. #6 for breweries, primarily thanks to Hants Oktoberfest and a trip to Eastleigh.
Tick off all Styles - just need to track down some Lambic - Unblended. Tick
More Protz 300 ticks - need to arrange a trips to Manchester and Birmingham for work. The latter has to be soon as I am after two winter seasonals. 3 out of 4 when I went to Manchester. 4 more thanks to trades. Would have been 5 but one bottle broke en route😢
Otherwise, just keep ticking. Tick. Reached 2,000.
2019
Maintain my Surrey position. Tick off more Big Smoke beers - they have a pub about 3 miles from me now but it in a great spot for public transport. Tick off Baears and Bondi breweries. If they’re both still around.
Work on Hampshire and Berkshire. Would need to double my ratings to get into top 5 and top 10 so don’t have particular targets. Will also concentrate on some of the better breweries: Double-Barrelled and Elusive from Berks and Unity and Redcat have from Hants. The last two Berkshire breweries are a supermarket and a brewpub so the first is easy but need an excuse to go up to Newbury.
I crept into the top 50 for Dorset last year. My grandparents retired there and I always remember asking what the badger on my Grandfather’s sweater was. He explained that Badgers was his favourite brewery. So
will aim for more Dorset brews and a more Badgers even if it is twig juice.
Aim to be in the Top 50 for 5 regions. Got a couple of regions in mind.
5 in each beer style as a minimum and work towards 10… unless all those new styles get introduced and that causes issues.
Hit 13.500 / Travl to 4 new European countries (I did 4 new ones this year)
I hit 14.000+ I visited 8 new European countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria and Chez Republic), first visit to Bavaria and frequent work trips to Amsterdam plus additional visits to the Netherlands.
2019:
My goal is to visit 6 new European countries, try to drink less beer and finally hit 4000 Belgian beers.
Just noticed that I should be able to tick off being in the Top 50 for West Sussex, and thus 5 counties, on 01/01/19 as I have two bottles I was given tonight.
20 countries with 100+ ratings: I’m going to be a bit more humble this year and hope that I can maintain the same pace in 2018 as I did in 2017. I have a few countries that I can safely get over the line next year: Czechia (70), Estonia (87), Hungary (81), and Portugal (68). I’m going to Hungary in the spring and the other three should be easy to accomplish once I move back to Amsterdam. Beyond that, I know of a couple of events coming up in Brussels next year that should give me some help on countries like Lithuania, Scotland, and Serbia.
Swing and a miss. I managed to reach 17 countries with 100 or more ratings with a few new additions this year: Czechia (100), Estonia (104), Hungary (120), and Scotland (103). I made significant progress on a few countries, including Ireland (92; almost!), Switzerland (61), and Albania (16, though I don’t think the country even has 100 beers to rate at this point).
Reach 115 countries: I have no idea how the hell I’m going to manage this one, but I managed to overshoot this year’s goal by eight. I’ve reigned in my goal a bit from the pace I had this year, but why not, eh?
Not even close. I’m stuck on 98, which means that I didn’t manage to rate a single new country in 2018.
Enter the top ten in the country h-index: I loved this stat when I first read about it and find that I sit in 31st place at 27 countries with 27+ ratings. I have the second-lowest number of ratings on the top 100 list from that thread, so it’s pretty easy for me to climb up the rankings. As it stands, I only need to get that number up to 35. Easy!
Also no movement here, as I’m stuck on 27 countries, which puts me in 31st on the original post about the country h-index.
Now for my 2019 goals!
Reach 20 countries with 100+ ratings: No point in stretching myself beyond last year’s goal. I will definitely get Ireland (92) there and I think I could potentially get Switzerland (61) there, too. I’m planning a lengthy visit to Slovakia (15) in the spring for about a month, so that should also be possible, and the lady and I have been discussing a trip to Japan (44) later in the year that would hopefully get that country across the line, too.
Reach 30 countries on the country h-index: I’m currently sitting at 27 with a few countries that are in prime position to help boost my score ( Australia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Wales) as long as I play my cards right.
Reach 100 countries rated: I was excessively ambitious about this last year, so I think it would just be nice to finally get into the triple-digit klube.
For 2019, it’s the start of only rating places. I kind of got tired of rating beers, it’s not as fun as it used to be, it feels more like a task. Many of the people I know have stop rating altogether, so I felt kind of alone at most beer events (especially festivals). Plus every year for the last half decade, there is about 10 new breweries opening or more in Quebec, making it harder to follow. So after noting my last of 2018 ( Oshlag Stout Caramel Salé), I’ll just going to enjoy (or not) what ever I’ll drink starting January First, 2019.
Done. Met more rbeerians, and just some other nice beer-y people.
Done. Traveled to Prague, so doing a lot of polotmavys was easy. 14 of each style at the moment, Faro being the lowest.
Done. Only 4 styles left under 20.
Failed. Still missing Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Rhode Island, West Virginia. Didn’t put big effort into it, so no surprise here.
Total failure. I rated way more than last year, partly because of more traveling.
2019 goals:
Rate less. 2018 was way too crazy. I’m not sure this will happen because I have already bought tickets for 3 different festivals, including MBCC, but this is the main aim.
Travl to at least 3 new EU capitals.
Meet more rbeerians.
Keep ticking hard to get styles. At the moment 17 styles have less than 30 ratings, I will try to get it down to 12. If the style change should finally happen, then will try to get 10 of every style.
Secondary goal: get 5 more counties ticked (at the moment 105) and get 4 new countries ticked (at the moment 106).
As for 2018 Goals
Get 10 of every non-beer style repeat goal - Nope got a few but Florida sucks for Sake
Get to 90 countries I’d really like 100 but not really feasible - Complete got 91 countries
Get to 100 regions - No stuck at 99
Not really 2018 goal but rate beer from 1250 unique breweries before I hit 5k total rates. - 2 new breweries away and way short of 5k so easy
2019 Goals
Get to #2 of unique Florida Breweries
Get 15 of every beer style - only one Faro away after a surprising fall
Get 10 of every non-beer style - will be tough but at least make progress
100 regions - only one away, I be in Northern Ireland this year maybe a new English county will be available
5K rates - this should happen no prob but was trying to time it to my exact 10yr RB anniversary but looks like i’ll be 2 months behind that at my normal rate
I actually had no goals.After a couple of years of silence I started shyly to rate again. I only wanted to reach 1000 ratings by today and I managed to at the end of November. So pretty satisfied
1 - Enjoy beers for the sake of it and not just to have a new rating
2 - Reach at least 100 rating for Belgium and England (it should be easy, since there are a lot of beers I had already but never rated)
3 - Keep on adding new places and beers to the database to keep RB the great site it is
4 - Try beers from new countries
5 - Manage to attend at least one beer festival
• 125 Countries – Currently at 112
• Improve German regions ratings – bring two more above 100 (currently at 5), bring the others up to 20
• 100 regions - currently at 91.
• 10 ratings for each style (10 missing) – wont get Polotmavy and Sahti but I try with the others.
• 400 place Ratings - currently at 303.
• Visit 2 new countries.
• Improve Ratings in my home Region (Rhineland-Palatinate). Currently at 453. This includes trying to get every brewey (53/74)
• Explore Berlin and surroundings. Visit all Berlin breweries and rate 1 of each. Currently at 35/77 breweries and at 132 rates.
I am almost at 10k, I did hit the Schlenkerla Grand Slam this year (having all the seasonals from the wooden barrel at Schlenkerla in Bamberg), I have 10 of each styles (actually 12 if it weren’t for Malt Likkah), and 110 countries.
I’ve been very naughty in 2018, completely ignored my goals and promises to myself. i expect to be exactly the same in 2019.
I managed 104 days without alcohol in 2018 ( a new World Record since 1999), that’s 2 per week by the way!
Still ‘Top Dog’ in Shropshire, but didn’t do so well with new Regions or Countries.
Three beery trips to Germany pushed my ‘Place Review’ totals and ‘Regions visited’ up nicely and a few weeks in California helped my US rates rise a lot.
I just want the site to improve, survive and flourish in 2019, up to you @joet
I’ll almost certainly lose the top spot in Cambs, but I’m happy with getting into the top 50 of some more English counties. I added a few this year, let’s see what I can hold onto and improve upon.
Verdict: Complete. Sneaking into the top 50 of some of the more difficult English counties, and keeping the top spot in Cambridgeshire (although this will likely be due to others not completing their backlog)
Get some more of the less common (for me) styles. Baltic porters and whatnot.
Verdict: Completed more or less, although the impending style shake up may or may not render this a bit redundant?
Add at least 4 English counties and 1 new country (money allowing) to my place rates. I’m envisaging Zomerzet, Glos, Warks and possibly E Sussex.
Verdict: Exceeded. Got 5 new counties’ places rated (Somerset, Glos, Warks, Cheshire and Berkshire - the last due to an unexpected train diversion!)
Finally do the Bermondsey mile (yes I know it’s a bit passé now but still…)
Verdict: Failed, just. Ive got 19 January pencilled in.
Keep in the top 50 of place raters.
Circumstances won’t allow me to travel as much as 2017 but I’d like to stay around where I am in the stats.
Verdict: Completed. Still just hanging in at 38.
Drink better beer, as opposed to drinking for ticks quite as much. Order online more as opposed to going out.
Verdict: 50/50. I still go.on sessiond of mediocre beer now and again.
Stay on RateBeer. It’s frustrating at times, but for me it remains the top beer logging/ticking/rating site by a country mile.
Verdict: I’m still here, but noticing the dwindling activity.
Drink no Greene King. Easier now that I’m no longer on their patch.
Verdict: Did it! No GK for this JJ!
Bonus: tried beer from 8 new states in 2018 (including two - Alaska and Alabama - in the last three days!). Also got a couple new Bundes-thingies.
Last year I was deployed at the end of 2017, so I totally forgot to do 2018 goals. Somehow I almost hit 1,000 ratings in a year. Missed it by just around 50 (after tonight’s future rates).
With that said here are my 2019 Beer Goals:
1000 new ratings
Complete all of the counties in England (5 left)
Attend 5 events
Write 20 new place reviews
Meet 12 new Ratebeerians (think I hit 6 or 7 this year)
Hit top 5 in Suffolk (Need 277 and probably need to drinking bunch Green King)
Czechia (70), 
Estonia (87), 
Hungary (81), and 
Portugal (68). I’m going to Hungary in the spring and the other three should be easy to accomplish once I move back to Amsterdam. Beyond that, I know of a couple of events coming up in Brussels next year that should give me some help on countries like 
Lithuania, Scotland, and 
Serbia.
Ireland (92; almost!), 
Switzerland (61), and 
Albania (16, though I don’t think the country even has 100 beers to rate at this point).
Slovakia (15) in the spring for about a month, so that should also be possible, and the lady and I have been discussing a trip to 
Japan (44) later in the year that would hopefully get that country across the line, too.
Australia, 
Finland, 
Iceland, 
New Zealand, Wales) as long as I play my cards right.
