One Year!

Today is the first birthday of A Beer a Day! And what a year it has been. Let's reflect.

It all began on May 25, 2014, with the review of Jack's Abby Barrel Aged Framinghammer. This was the first of many reviews (too many for me to go back and count.) A few weeks later was my article Why Craft Beer? A Discussion About Price.  My brother build a pyramid of beer drinkers for me, which has spurred much debate among readers, friends, and other bloggers (people debated it wildly on the craft beer subreddit). My Facebook fan page began on August 17th, and is up to 178 followers (tell your friends!)

We added a team of writers, starting with Chet Maplewood on June 22nd. (Still waiting for that second post, Chet!) June 23rd was the premier for Chris H, with his Unibroue article Maudite vs. Trois Pistoles. Eric Talve had his first of many Week in Beer posts on June 24th, which many followers have come to love. Peter Modest wrote his first article July 22nd, and has advised Scott on his home brewing adventures.  Kevin Scott had his first post September 9th, and has become a fixture of the Beer a Day team. We are continuing to look for more writers, so please contact Scott if you'd like to write!

Scott began home brewing in October, and has done 5 batches. The first was a Brown Ale, which turned out quite good (especially for a first ever brew!) Next up was a Robust Honey Porter, brewed with nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice and spruce. I purposely left out the utter failure of this brew in the blog, but figure it's time to come clean. I wanted to brew a beer that was "Christmas in a bottle." What better ingredients then the ones just mentioned? Well, I had not yet perfected the art of understanding when fermentation was complete, as well as how much of an ingredient is too much. After removing the lid of the fermenter 4 weeks into the brew, it was clear that the cinnamon was too overpowering. We added a few branches of spruce, intending to keep it in for only a day or two. Two weeks later the branches were removed, and it literally smelled like a hundred car air fresheners liquified into a tank. We bottled a few bombers and then added coffee beans to mellow out the flavor. (Didn't work) After a month and a half I finally cracked open a bottle during a playoff game, and the beer gushed out of the bottle like a geyser. Clearly the beer had not yet finished fermenting, and we were only a few days away from the bottle exploding. Thank goodness we caught it when we did. Needless to say, there was no way I was getting a real Christmas tree after that disaster-the smell of spruce still makes me nauseous.  Home-brew number 3 was a Belgian Tripel, brewed with tangerine peel. Batch 4 was a sparkling pear cider, and batch 5 a clone of Pliny the Elder. Batch 5 was the clear winner, and batch 3 a close second.

Some other highlights for the year included (check the favorites section for links) Heady Topper, Lawson's Sip of Sunshine, various Bourbon County beers, Prairie Bomb, The Bruery sours and barrel aged beers, Parabola, Wormtown, KBS, Jack's Abby, and the entire Beer Camp series. There will be many more in the upcoming year.

My absolute favorite post was the Oktoberfest: Twas the Night. If you haven't read it yet, check it out!

Finally, on the statistics side, we had 16,800 unique visitors with 33,400 page views! Thanks to all the loyal readers who continue to support the site. 

Cheers!
Scott