About a year and a half ago, I started getting serious about good beer.
One thing I did was buy a book listing the top 100 beers as chosen by a bunch of beer critics. I went through that, ticking all of the beers I’d had. I can’t remember what the exact tally was but I know I didn’t expend much pen ink in the ticking process. So I vowed to try more beers so, the next time I went through a list like that it would be less embarrassing.
And just such a list was created yesterday. The Local Taphouse’s Hottest 100 draws a lot of attention each year. Well, a lot of attention from beer geeks; I’d reckon the rest of the country is more interested in that other Hottest 100 some radio station does (I don’t bother listening to that. Because I am old).
Anyway, there was quite a buzz to see who finished where, with brewers and fans tweeting each other congratulations and/or professing shock that they didn’t finish higher.
I was looking at both these tweets and the list after the fact because I was working on Australia Day. And I was quite keen to check out the list and grade the depth of my beer geekery. I think a popular list like this is a decent measure for a guy from Wollongong, a city where a good number of these beers aren’t stocked by anyone. Which means you have to order them in – and if you’ve started ordering beers from interstate, I reckon that’s ranks pretty high on the beer geek scale.
Anyway, looking through the list I was pretty chuffed to see that I’d tried nine of the top 10 beers – the only one I missed out on was the Watermelon Warhead (and, sadly, I reckon I’ll never get to taste that one).
The longest run of consecutive beers was 10 – from No45 to No 54 and the most difficult beer to get was the Zephyr from Doctor’s Orders, which I had to go all the way to Newcastle for, bringing a growler with me.
All-up I had managed to work my way through 73 of the 100 beers in the list. Which is a number I’m fairly proud of. The list has also helped me identify a few new breweries I’ll need to track down – including Wayward, Bellingen Brewing Company and 4 Hearts. Which I know will not be a burden at all.