Tag: ABV

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2017 Drinking statistics

All year long, I have been charting what I have drunk (beer-wise) and reporting in on occasion with some figures.

Now here are my final results for 2017….

Overall Numbers
Ounces drunk per week
2017 was 189.67 compared to 204.31 for 2016. My target was 190 and I snuck under the wire with a decrease of 14.64. The next goal will be more modest, hoping to lop off another 5 ounces. The end goal (currently) is to bring my drinking down to 175 for both weight and liver health reasons.

The High Week was 267 with the low being 160.5 and there were only 15 weeks where I was over the 200 ounce mark.

ABV per week
On average the ABV finished at 6.59% for 2017 with it weighted between 6.41% and 6.67%. There was an outlier 6.03% and five in the higher 6.80 to 6.94% range but all in the 6% average range. The lowest ABV week was 5.11% at the start of the year and 8.59% as an individual high at the end of the year. 2016 average was higher at 6.74%.

Diving into the particulars, my top 5 breweries by ounces drunk were as follows:
1. El Segundo – 581 (includes collaborations they bottled)
2. Eagle Rock – 508
3. Firestone Walker – 475.4 (includes Barrelworks)
4. Stone Brewing – 409.7
5. Sierra Nevada – 406

Five of my top 10 were L.A. based, six if you count Firestone Walker and all but one were California except for New Belgium which was a surprise to me. Other surprises were how little Beachwood beers I drank to the point where I had more Hopworks Organic beers from Portland.

356 vs 504. The latter were classified as IPA, Sours and barrel aged which made up a mere 58.6% of beers drunk. I so thought that I was too far tilted to IPA world for that number to be under 70%. So this result makes me happy.

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Drinking Stats for 2016

Since April, I have been keeping a basic set of beer drinking statistics. Not 100% coverage of all that I drank during the year, but a pretty good deep dive into what I have been pouring into my pint, tulip and other glassware.

Maybe it was seeing the numbers that started a self-fulfilling prophecy but pretty quickly the numbers in the (3) columns (ounces drunk, ABV and cost) collected to an average that did not deviate much.

Within three weeks, the weekly amount drunk settled into a range between 204-208. The high week was 288 and the low 163. The average ABV was even more constricted into an under 1/2 percentage range from 6.51% to 6.99%. The high ABV week was 8.96% with the low clocking in at 5.19%. Dollars spent per week was where the widest gulf was found going from $49.90 to $62.86 from Week 5 to Week 29. The low week was $31.75 and the high was $136.00.

Overall the average amount consumed was 204.31 at an average ABV of 6.74% spending $60.95 a week to do so.

Also, in utilizing my Excel skills, I was able to rank the breweries that I most drank from. Yes, it includes samplers but this list is meant to analyze more who I reached for than just quantity.

Eagle Rock 25 They are my closest brewery. No shock here.
Stone 24 Usually bought at Trader Joe’s
Firestone Walker 24 A blog favorite plus, Luponic Distortion
Mumford 22 Obviously my DTLA pick
Sierra Nevada 18 Beer Camp and Oktoberfest
Highland Park 17 I would have thought this would be higher
El Segundo 15 Day 1 releases, ’nuff said
Lagunitas 13 Tour of Azusa plant basically
Brewyard 10 My Glendale brewery. Will be more next year
The Bruery 10 Kind of surprise, cost should have impacted

I will keep you updated on how 2017 shakes out. Already pumping data into the new spreadsheet.

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Session Day!

This post is another of the read THIS first, then come back variety.

So are you gonna do it? Can you stay below the 4.5%? Is there anything at your local that is that low? Or are you going to have to find something bottled (probably from England) to celebrate with.

I will do my level best to stay below the limit and I will add an update to this post with what I have found.

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Stupid politicians

Ugh! Politicians make me want to scream.

Mississippi (home of the fabulous Lazy Magnolia Brewery) is losing the ABV restriction battle it seems. Check out this ARTICLE for the info.

All the politicians have to do is raise the limitation. And it isn’t even a big ask. from 5 to 8%. Mississippi would still be excluding alot of beer (if that is their goal). But more breweries might open if the cap was at 8% and Lazy Magnolia would be able to brew and (gee whiz) sell more beer too!

So check out the website for Raise Your Pints and support from wherever you are.

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A Little Bit softer now…

from K.M. Weaver at the HopPress blog
“Over the last ten years, about 30-40% of new international beers have had alcohol levels with 5.5%+ ABV, while the proportion of U.S. beers with this characteristic has steadily risen to nearly twice that. Today, more than 70% of new American beers are these bigger, bolder, less-sessionable beers.

In 2009, the average ABV of new U.S. beers rose beyond 7% for the first time. New non-U.S. beers, in comparison, have continued to hover around 5.5%.”

These numbers are sure to intrigue the beer geek crowd because they put a number to alot of anecdotal evidence seen at breweries across the country.

What I would like to see is the future of this graph. Because I think the peak has been reached. Numbers will drop because there is a ceiling to the ABV before it’s not beer anymore. (For me that is 31%). My guess is that the median will drop to about 6%. Session beers and extreme beers will occupy swaths to the left and right but the sweet spot in the middle will be the king IPA. A trend that I don’t see leaving anytime soon.

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Tactical Nuclear Penguin + Tokyo

First, big shout out to Josh at FoodGPS who purchased not only the famed Tokyo from BrewDog in Scotland but also TACTICAL NUCLEAR PENGUIN!!
TNP tokyo
That’s right. The highest alcohol beer on the entire PLANET! Alot of all caps, I know but this beer costs a good 37 pounds in England.
TNP

This was one hell of a beer. Big whiskey aromas almost assault your nose. A sip burns the tongue and anything else it comes into contact with warming alcohol. A big roasty, peat taste dominates. It comes in a 12 oz bottle but can easily be shared by six people. This is a sipper to slowly enjoy.