Since the last Portland post was menus only, I thought that I would finish up with a few pretty pics to make you want to visit…
PDX Summer 2024 – Photos
2021 – A Look Back
Before we get too far into 2022, I want to re-visit 2021 again and look at my year in beer.
643 individual servings of beer were had and well over half were IPA. I would say bad me but I will save that for another point in this post. Of those IPAs, 114 were West Coasties and 105 were of the Hazed variety. DIPAs were 54 and TIPAs 19.
Pilsners and Lagers combined for 49 entries with Barrel- Aged right behind at 45. Sours, which I seem to be eschewing more and more ended at 15 and the beers from Foreign lands a pitiful, measly, really bad me 7. Right there is one of the reasons why I persist in this Excel exercise. So that I can see the stark numbers.
Speaking of stark numbers, I drank, on average, 158.7 ounces of beer a week. The lowest mark since I have done this. The ABV average was 7.38% per beer.
On to who I drank the most of, it as as follows:
- Firestone Walker
- Smog City
- Stone Brewing
- Radiant Beer Co.
- AleSmith
- Eagle Rock Brewery
- El Segundo Brewery
- Los Angeles Ale Works
- Highland Park Brewery
- The Bruery
Yup, a 100% California list and 50% LA local to boot!
Finally, of note is that each week I “crown” a Beer of the Week. This year, Firestone Walker tallied an impressive 5 as did Anaheim newbie Radiant Beer Co. Smog City racked up 3 for the proverbial bronze.
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.
FoodGPS Teaser – Denver beer
Tomorrow my weekly Brew and You column on FoodGPS will cover some of the Denver breweries that you can visit anytime. Not just when the Great American Beer Festival hits. And all of them are fairly close to Mile High Stadium and Peyton’s new place.
And while you are over there reading, how about checking out some of the recent Beer Pro interviews? You can learn about Henry from Monkish Brewing or about Chas from Ventura’s Surf Brewery.
And then check out the L.A. Beer Blast later tomorrow to find out where you need to go for a pint.
State by State
I saw this handy graphic on the Brookston Bulletin and it really shows where the breweries are no matter the methodology in getting there. There are some empty holes on the map that need to fixed! (Especially if I want to ever finish my quest to have a beer from each of the 50 states) Thanks to Brooklyn Growler for putting this together.
P.S. Click on the graphic to enlarge it.
Coaster Collection – Part 3
The third installment of the Coaster Collection Chronicles…..
Coaster Collection – Part 2
Here are some more photos of the brewery coasters that I inherited from my dad.
Coaster collection
I inherited a vast array of coasters from my dad last year and I thought I should share some of the old and new and artistic ones. So here goes…
More coaster posts to come later.
European Beer Guide
Some websites are decidedly old school. The European Beer guide is one of those.
And that is not a bad thing. As long as you have a wealth of information then you can overcome some interesting color choices.
And this guide/website has loads of information. Check it out before your next trip abroad. You might find a great place to visit.
Beer, Food, Lodging
Beer travels are a great way to break out of the box and this sounds like a great way to hit the Czech beer scene, The Czech Republic’s New Brewery Hotels
Thanks to Richard for alerting me to this!