Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about starting both an annual and LIFE ‘list’ of beers that I have tried. This is probably the super geek or science nerd trying to coming out — but hey what can be wrong with finding another way to enjoy beer and tell the world (or least remind the BV crew)?! So, what do I mean by ‘lists’? Well to start it would be a simple way to track all the different beers we get to taste each year – a running total of individual beers and would probably include some other notes as well. As a starting point here are the data points I would include:

Brewery Name, Beer Name, Region, Style, ABV, Tap/Cask/Bottle or Other, Appearance notes, including colour, Nosing notes, Tasting notes, date, location consumed, Optional details like interesting ingredients, IBU, etc.

The rules are you list the 1st one of the season (ie, if you drink a lot of Sn Pale Ale or Dark Star Golden Ale it would still only get one entry) and if you manage to consume the same beer in both cask and bottle form those each count as 1 entry each. A sort of running total. A simple list.

Here is a sample for 2009 so far (just a rough field list to be padded out later on):

Fullers Vintage Ale
San Miguel
Tropical
Meantime Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale
Insulation Bitter, Hyde
Avibtinue
Rogue Juniper Pale Ale
Stone IPA
Little Creature Pale
Neglo Modelo
Stella (I know, bad form but I was on an airplane)
Brocklyn larger
etc etc

Feedback appreciated on both the data standard and the concept of ‘beer lists’!!! And if anyone knowns of any good beer lists please send us the link… In the mean time keep drinking.

Oz and James Drink to Britain on BBC 2 is pretty watchable stuff. In episode 1 they finish with train station pub crawl in Yorkshire. Nice!

They also go to the Thornbridge Brewery in Derbyshire.  BeerViking think Thornbridge is one to watch and the Jaipure IPA is worth having on tap but if the Kipling, with it’s use of New Zealand hops is a lovely, lovely beer.

St. Peter’s is a Suffolk micro-brewery that has been on the attention cusp of Beer Viking for a while now.  Their bottled beers come in a distinctive replica old school bottle from and thinking as I write, I’ve not actually had them on tap/pump.

Though they do have a pub in Clerkenwell that I need to get to.

I recently was in Majestic Wine Warehouse (Doc had mentioned he’d picked up a mixed case there on sale) and I was going for that but then noticed the 12 pack of St. Peter’s Dark Ales for the excellent price of £16.80 from £21.00.

The case contains:

• 3 X Mild
• 3 X Old Porter
• 3 X Winter Ale
• 3 X  Cream Stout

I was most excited by the Cream Stout and in the end was so disappointed I haven’t been back to try that one again yet.

I believe I’ve Twittered through a couple of quick reviews on the others but my favourite is actually the Mild.

I enjoy the Porter and the Winter Ale, with the Porter probably getting the nod.

It’s been great to have a case of Dark Ales, especially as the weather has turned and so it’s defiantly time to move on. etc. but having the St. Peter’s case has helped me with a problem I had with St. Peters that I couldn’t get a handle on.

And now I do.  And it’s this:

I like the beers St. Peter’s makes, I enjoy their efforts and what they are trying to do.  From all the range I can only think of the IPA and the Cream Stout as being a let down.  But that’s it…I like their beer, but I don’t love it.

And when you’re on a quest to find the best beer in the universe that’s a problem.

NB:  The Dark Ales is gone from the online bit of Majestic but they still have the Mixed Case for £16.80.

One of the best things is also the worst things about Twitter and that is the brevity of being held to only 140 characters for a post.

Therefore, we have realised that it’s time to create a standard, a codex if you will, for one and all to be able to decipher this short bursts.

There is some heated debate about to match to ratebeer vs. BeerAdvocate vs. CAMRA’s cyclops and I don’t believe we’ve quite finished the discussion…

Actually, I’m not sure we ever will.

Brewery Name Beer Name|Region|Style|ABV|IBU|Key Ingredients|Tap, Cask, Bottle or Other|Appearance notes, including colour|Nosing notes|Tasting notes|Overall Vibe|Score out of 20

Initial tests from mobile have proved the above unworkable.

Brewery Name Beer Name;Region;StyleABV;Tap, Cask, Bottle or Other;Appearance notes, including colour;Nosing notes;Tasting notes;Overall Vibe;Score out of 20;Optional details like interesting ingredients, IBU, etc.

So, re-writing a recent Twitter rating:

Dark Star Critical Mass|Sussex|Christmas|7.8%|C|Min Head-Very Dark, Treacle clr||Slight bitter, sweet upfront, goes v. dry|Firesider!! 17

Note the || this is because my nose was impaired, so I’m thinking better to leave in the || to denote a section has been skipped.

I’m also not sure if we don’t want to allow scores in the Appearance, Nosing and Tasting or just give an overall score and if that’s out of 20 or not?

Feedback is welcome and we’ll see if this is a system we can live with our not.