So - here it is, 2012 and the need to feel like I am doing something different and more profound than I did in 2011. Aside from the obligatory resolutions of weight modification, financial independence, and fitness attainment, I thought it would be good to try this blogging thing again. Not that my first attempt was all that bad, writing is just not my forte. However, drinking is somewhat of a talent if I were ever to have one. I like to imbibe on occasion, so that is what I am going to blog about this time around. Maybe this will help me keep focus and interest in putting things in my mind down on electronic paper.

I was never great in English. I can spell fairly well, but probably butcher most known rules of sentence structure. Suck it. It shouldn't take proper grammar to get my words across and everybody will know what I am saying even if I add a comma somewhere it doesn't belong. But I do want to try and exercise the creative side of my brain before it really turns into Jell-O.

Now back to the drinking. Like I said, I imbibe on occasion. I probably got my first taste of alcohol stealing wine coolers out of my folks fridge back in junior high. We had this field not too far from the house and the guys and I would spend hours every day in the summer waxing poetic about some skin mag that one person brought along with a beer or 2 that we were able to steal. Back then my parents drank mostly the hard stuff, so on occasion I would take a wine cooler that had taken up permanent space in the ice box. I think they were remnants of a party that my parents had thrown and nobody was drinking them, so why not me. They were California Coolers I believe (..."one more reason to hate California" was the way the jingle went).

Then there was high school and the requisite weekend party where for some reason alcohol showed up. Back then I was a cheap date - 2 beers tops and I was out. I also had this fascination for Malibu Rum and Orange Juice. I can still taste it now and it conjures up a whole lot of interesting memories.

College was where I really began to drink. Yes there were times of excess and we will leave those stories for another time. I am talking about being selective in what I drink, thinking about what I like, and seeking out items to expand my palate. Before this time I still drank mostly Malibu and OJ, but also a lot of Coors Light because that is what everybody usually drank. At the time I thought it was the greatest thing in the world and to this day will still have one on occasion, but mostly I consider it "canoe beer." Drinking it was like having sex in a canoe - it's fucking close to water. It was around this time that I made my first trip to a brewery and discovered what I thought at the time was something so fabulous and tasty, that it has helped fuel my curiosity for good beer today. During an officially sanctioned university trip to Seattle, I stumbled across the Red Hook Brewery and took the tour and had a fresh pint in their on premise bar. That was good stuff back then and it made all the other things I was drinking so boring. Pity part is that the local stores never carried anything that I considered good by this new measure. About the most interesting beer we could find at the time was this one called Simpatico which probably wasn't all that great either.

Fast forward to now - I started following Gary Vaynerchuk and his Wine Library TV (http://tv.winelibrary.com/) videos a few years back and really got interested in wine, pushing aside beer for a while. The great thing about his videos was the way he described what he was tasting by using very colorful and off beat terms. In episode #98 he describes the taste of a wine by saying it tasted like deer roadkill mixed with cherries. I took some wine classes after that and really enjoyed tasting and describing wine even though I didn't have the flavor histories that some of the others had - to this day I have no idea what cassis tastes like even though I see a lot of wines have this component. Gary also did videos of other tastings and several of them were on beer. In one episode he had Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery, and the discussion centered around the notion that tasting beer can be just an interesting and thought provoking as tasting wines. I still like drinking wines, but I have been on a beer kick ever since and try to find something new whenever I get the chance.

So here it is - the real reason I am writing this blog. Along with my new found fondness for beer I have taken up home brewing. With my first batch long since bottled, I am trying to figure out what my next style will be. I have gone back in my mind and tried to remember the styles and flavors that I dig, but sometimes have trouble remembering ones I haven't tasted in a while. Statisticians call it "recency effect" where I can recall the most recent items over the older ones. I decided I needed to log all the different beers I am trying and blogging seemed like a halfway enjoyable way to keep track and possibly share with others.

The rules are simple - when I try something new I will blog about it. No emphasis on local beers or anything like that, just whatever I pick up at the store and bring home will suffice. I may throw in the occasional wine or other spirit (I dig high end rums and scotches), but mostly this will be about the beer I try. Prost, Salud, Skål, Cheers, Sláinte, and Bottoms Up!