Name: Dan aka Frozen Summers
Blog: FrozenBoozeReviews.com
Established: 2010?

Why do you do it?
I was teaching at university at the time, and we’d just completely changed to cirriculum of the main subject I ran to include modern stuff like youtube and twitter. Needed some practice at editing videos and uploading to Youtube so I could teach those things, and doing a beer video review thing seemed like the best. At the time there wasn’t much coverage of Aussie beer online. I wasn’t any good and the first videos were horrible, both from a production perspective and in how little I knew. I kinda just kept going, writing some blog stuff, adding a podcast and a few other things that came and went. Last year I expanded it to cover all of the world of booze.

What else have you got going on in your life?
I work for an independent bottleshop chain, so I spend a lot of time moving boxes full of booze. I spend my days off playing video games, brewing beer, reading comics and watching mostly comic-based TV shows. I also have to do quite a bit of “research” to keep my palate in fine form.

What makes you keep writing if you’re not getting paid for it?
I kind of am, in that I got my current job because of the website. Other than that the site keeps me thinking about what I’m drinking rather than just slamming it down fast.

What’s one of your blog posts that you like the most?
The podcast I did all about depression and it’s relationship with alcohol, it’s very serious and filled with me talking about my own issues. It was hard to do but something I felt had to be done.

One tip about beer blogging that you’d like to share?
Keep going. Even if you don’t think you’re any good just through constant practice you will get better.

The phrase ‘‘craft beer’’ – love it or hate it?
Hate it. It has no meaning and is basically used to perpetuate an anti-success tall poppy syndrome. Especially when what someone is using ownership as a determining factor. What matters is how the beer tastes, and being owned by a multinational corporation has no direct effect on that. I’d rather have a well made non-craft beer than an infected gusher that is basically bad homebrew with a proper label.

One thing that still surprises you about the beer scene?
That people still think that Pride of Ringwood is the flavour they hate in mainstream Australian lager, when really it comes from the malting process (I think). Even funnier when they cite XXXX as an example, since they don’t even use PoR.

And one thing you hate about it?
Beer not being treated properly. It seems that even the best beer retailers still love to leave good beers on hot, bright dusty store shelves, and not in the fridge where they should be.