OK, time for new thread for 2023 and your plans and hopes.
If you want to bring in your 2022 beer goal posts please do, but this is for 2023 really.
I will go first.
I want to stay fit and healthy, which will mean I calm down a bit beer wise (I am 69 and overweight by more than a few lbs).
I want to stay around the 120 mark in the most rated beer list.
I want to stay the top rater of Shropshire beers.
I want to stay on the list for the top reviewer of places, most countries rated and most regions rated.
That will do, although I would also like to review a place in every English County (38 so far) and reach 100 regions of places rated (currently on 93).
Continuing my quest to try every brick & mortar brewery in Ontario. The count is a bit iffy with the status of some of them not being clear (e.g. one on hiatus, one not clear if itās a client brewery etc.) but I have around 15 left. (7 if I use an open in 2021 cut-off vs the moving target, since more keep opening!) I am planning a trip around ticking some of the more northern options so this should be theoretically doable.
I have a longstanding goal of ticking my last handful of regions for England and USA but have not plans to actually make an effort to do so, so that one is unlikely to get completed.
-15000 is coming soon. Hope to get some brewery to make a beer for it.
-more beer travel, and to find a better-defined tasting group in Prague, if I stay there.
Get to 1900 breweries sampled to set me up for big 2K in 2024
I sampled beer from 112 styles last year, try and beat that number
Work on getting all styles towards 20 rates, sub-goals:
a. 197 rates away, reduce this by 25% aka 49 brews
b. 32 styles still under get 5 more above the 20 mark
Get to below 1,000 with respect to state ticks necessary to tick 100 beers in every state. Currently have 1,600 or so left, so 600 may be doable in the upcoming yearā¦
Finally visit every New York brewery. I made some progress this year, but am still missing Queens Brewing, the new Alewife, NS Beer, the second location of Strong Rope, and the new Gun Hill.
Trade my spare Kyrgyzstan tick to a Ratebeerian. Hint hint.
Meet some Philadelphian ratebeerians when I live there in a few months.
Go to every Philadelphia brewery. I think I just got barrel splitters, Philadelphia Brewing, Mainstay, Manayunk, Iron Hill Center City, New Ridge, Twisted Gingers, Dock Street South, Cartesian, Humble Parlor, Brewery ARS Kensington, Meyers.
Try as many new breweries as possible. I did 195 last year (roughly, a few were backlog) so Iād like to beat that if I can. A long-term goal is to try beer from 5,000 breweries - Iām at 4,355 now. So will keep plugging away.
Focus on local breweries and the handful of non-London breweries I truly enjoy.
Get all my rating backlog done! I made good strides on that in 2022. Donāt think I have too much left.
Keep drinking beer from my cellar. I have more than I would like!
Do more place ratings. I just need to get out more (tricky with two kids under four but not impossible).
Damn. Another bites the dust. now NS Beer is on the list with Braven and the old Chelsea brewery of brewers that were open in NY while I lived there that I never visited.
Taking a cue from Travlr, getting ever closer to fully abandoning Hazies, Still not immune to the charms of NZ hops though, and get suckered back in. Sugary Imperial Stouts (12%+) might also get fully dismissed.
Looking forward to visiting Art History, Afterthought, Double Clutch
Hoping Sierra Nevada tries and convicts those responsible for letting the Hazy Little Things take over their portfolio.
Simples for me - sort out the bloody backlog! Then review where Iām actually at - consider goals at that point. Got a holiday to Cape Verde at Easter so that will be a new country and I will try and rate as many different beers as I can find (the wife will allow me to find).
A few addenda based on othersā input. Not so much āgoalsā for me as much as changes in my drinking preferences.
Drink fewer hazies, more westies. I used to love hazy IPAs but now I am way more discriminating. Iāve always loved traditional west coast IPAs and that affinity has surged back in the past year.
Drink fewer pastries. I quite like the style but I very rarely find myself at home wanting to drink a whole can. Iāll keep a few on hand, though, for the occasions when I do.
Drink more lager. Iāve always loved lager but it kind of got crowded out amid the growth of all other craft beer styles. So I make a little greater effort to drink plain old lager, especially stuff from Germany and Czech.
I think beer and place rating wise Iām going to be happy with treading water. Itās getting harder and harder to rate 100+ places per year! I will try for 1275 places and 7500 beers by the end of the year.
Visit and rate places at least one new UK county (Iām missing 6), or at least beef up one of my weaker counties with 5 or less.
Continue to chase slightly less common styles I like: bocks, brown ales, Scotch ales, Baltic porters. Get those numbers up and divert myself away from pales, sours, impy stouts and bitters.
Try beer from at least 3 new countries, taking me to 80. Itās getting harder!
Seek out good beer from the US and the Continent. Itās getting harder and harder to find anything affordable.
At the same time, drink more local beer. Sometimes my rate-chasing means I ignore local breweries more than I should, and the two we lost in Leicester this year (West End and Framework) really hit home. Use āem or lose āem.
Iād love to add an overseas trip to my goals but this isnāt likely.
Addendum: Iām coming up to my 10-year anniversary in May. So while not a goal thatās kind of exciting.
Maybe if they werenāt sugary, harsh on the throat and didnāt look like sewageā¦
Or is that the whole point?
Most that I try from local to me suck anyway so I totally agree and have for awhile.
Indeed. Iām very pleased to see new ones appearing, many weighing in under 7%. Now if someone, anyone would take an interest in making pale alesā¦
Like many users have mentioned before me, cutting back a bit is an aspiration this year, drinking 3 - 4 ācraft cansā a day is unsustainable both physically and financially.
An average of 2 new beers a day will take me comfortably to 18k, Iām not going to get in the Overall Top 50 anytime soon, but keeping comfortably in the top 75 would be good. A box of 24 new rates from dry drinker is on its way, which should help an otherwise quite dry Jan (after the @cgarvieuk tasting on the 2nd, which doesnāt count!)
Iād like to stay top of Northumberland, for no other great reason that Iām already comfortably there. I should be back in Amble in late June, so a trip to Brewis and Northumbrian Gifts in Alnwick should net maybe double-figures of new rates. I might have to resort to hitting the meads though.
Iāve 3 styles to get - ice perry and two sakes. I know ice perry isnāt that hard to come by if youāre willing to drop Ā£25 on a 500ml bottle, Iāve just never prioritised it over beer, but it might be fun to complete the styles. One of the sakes I know is stocked at a fancy Japanese restaurant in Edinburgh, but itās a risk to book a meal for four there and they donāt have it in. Might look again at the Japan Centre online shop and see if they have one or both of them, but IIRC itās hard to work out the exact style on their shop vs. where RB cetegorises them.
Sheffield is on the radar for me and a non-RB pal who try and meet up somewhere a couple of times a year for a ramble through good pubs and architecture of a British town. Last year we only managed Hull, but it was well worth it. The RB-planned trip in March is too soon for me, Iād rather wait until the trains are back to their normal terrible service, rather the current nearly non-existent service. Sheffield would be a weekend trip from Edinburgh, I donāt drive and donāt fancy the coach.
Other than that, probably some local Scottish festivals, maybe IMBC as that was fun last year. Oh and weāre holidaying by ferry & train to Copenhagen with the family in the summer, and I should be allowed out for a couple of hours to do some furious ticking in a Mikkeller venue or two.
