TBF he started looooooong before any rating sites existed
But he didn’t even note if he liked a beer or not… seems a bit strange. Each to their own, I suppose.
When ‘ticking’ started it was literally that, ticking them in the Good Beer Guide (since that had a pretty definitive list of beers at the time, didn’t have 2000 breweries kicking out 3 new beers a week each). Some gave a score and some even wrote tasting notes, but most just kept a list. You got to know what brewers you liked and which you didn’t, and the idea anyone would get to 50k was laughable back then. Some joined Ratebeer, a few more joined Untappd, but not many entered their backlogs from before joining, there’s reams of paper out there with beers drunk in the 80s and 90s scrawled on them!
(BTW yes I was one of ‘them’, stopped ticking for the sake of it when it stopped being ‘how many new beers can I find’ and the only limits were how many yo could afford or consume)
Better than rating 50k beers but not drinking any of them.
but seriously…
That whole ticking thing was a thing wasn’t it.
I’m reminded of a documentary I watched on it years ago and they were focusing on some dude who was hitting either the 3K or 4K mark (back when that would have been a remarkable number, more than 20 years ago). They didn’t make it look glamorous though, the dude was just pounding sample pours at a festival and was sloppy drunk.
The thing that struck me about this was how he has 250 notebooks full of beers he’s drunk, over numerous decades, but not ‘digitised’ so seemingly without any categorisation.
At least on RB there are stats; beers are filed under brewery, style, country etc and part of the enjoyment is checking through these stats.
He says he hasn’t the time to digitise but is he not curious? The lack of order / filing would drive me insane.
Yeah that stuck out to me too. It’s like, why even bother making the effort then? You’d never be able to find notes on any specific beer, and no stats, nothing of any interest can be gleaned from this. I really don’t get what he gets out of this. Just seems like a colossal waste of time to not do anything with all that data.
I think some people like this are closet alcoholics attempting to pass it off as a passionate hobby simply because they take notes on the drinks and therefore it’s not alcoholism?
Hey, don’t blow up everyone’s spot! Ultimately, I think it is just another form of collecting, as this is. We like to tell ourselves that we have a deeper enjoyment because we force ourselves to consider aroma and flavor, but I won’t denigrate someone who merely ticks as (which is ultimately what most UT users do).
How does he know if he had a beer or not? Carrying 250 notebooks around would require a cart. I’ve started to lose track around 1000.
Nicely put, probably explains why ticking for the sake of it doesn’t seem appealing to me these days.
There’s a publication in UK called GOBBS (Guild of British Beer Scoopers) that lists a huge number of beers though these days far from complete obviously, so those like Andy who haven’t computerised (bear in mind he was doing this before spreadsheets were common and even longer before mobile devices would hold and display them. When going to a festival people get the list beforehand and pre-mark a list with what they’ve already had, what’s a new brewery, etc. I’d also say you probably remember with around 90% accuracy if you’ve had a beer or not when you see it in front of you - plus most of the old skool like Andy are doing UK cask beers only
And yes, my main reason for giving up was new beers appear literally faster than you can drink them, and I was drinking mediocre beers and/or styles I’m just not fussed about for the sake of numbers. I don’t regret doing it, had some great fun at pubs and fests, but there’s just no need now, when I can’t even keep up just sticking to breweries and styles I like
Having bought several beers accidentally (usually when I didn’t realize I was logged out of RateBeer) that I’ve already rated this might have been true at one time, but doubtful now. Throw in this craze of relabeling beer and changing clip designs.
I find I still have reasonable powers of recollection, but also with most beers being one-off brews it’s usually not an issue after a month! I do still sometimes buy duplicates by mistake (particularly if I see a beer draught before realising I have a can at home I’ve not opened) but it’s a rarity
Rebadging is of course a different kettle of fish, I try to avoid falling into that trap but of course generally you’d never know
This was a lot easier for me when almost all the beers I drank were bottled/canned. The name and label made my recognition of a beer a lot easier.
Now with a ton of either tap-only (or even previously tap-only) offerings and changing labeling makes it nearly impossible for me to keep track of many beers.
I’m constantly ordering flights where at least one of the beers is something I’ve had before. It used to bother me, but I’m okay with it now (unless it was a terrible beer).
I actually found this site back in 2005 because I was tired of trying to keep track of my beers on my own. I had a small list that I was maintaining, but once I hit about 100 beers, I realized it was untenable.
Oh man, i remember traveling with a printed list.
I was well into 5 figures on a printed list before smartphones came about… used to print it font size 3 to minimise the sheets of paper, not sure I could even read that these days!
When I go to a country I haven’t been to I sometimes print the beers I’ve had still, as long as the list is like 100 or less. I’ve never been to denmark, but wouldn’t bother there obviously though, way too many danish ratings.
