Galletly - How to Have a Beer

NINETY PERCENT of what I know about beer, I learned in the course of one year. Between August 9, 2011 and August 8, 2012 to be exact. I realise that doesnt bode particularly well for the contents of this book. Perhaps now youre wondering if you should have bought 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die instead. Sure, its out of date and full of beers that no longer exist, but at least its hardcover; it would have looked great on the shelf.

The good news is youre in safe hands. My beer education might not have been long but it was really intense like a 365-day beer boot camp. Was I getting a PhD in the science of brewing? Living as a Trappist monk? Travelling the world with a copy of the aforementioned 1001 tome? No, something way better.

I was blogging.

At this point the penny is probably starting to drop. You may have flipped back to the cover and realised that hang on that name looks familiar. Yes, I am the one who wrote that beer blog everyone was always talking about. The one that got your mum into IPAs and your buddy called the best thing on the internet since lolcats. Its natural to feel a little star-struck.

Or no? Youve never even heard of me? Weird. I guess Ill have to explain then.

My blog was called Beer for a Year (the catchier A Year in Beer was taken) and I came up with it while I was walking through the booze aisle of my local supermarket. I was on my way to pick up a bottle of heavily discounted shiraz, as one does, when I was struck by how big the craft beer section had become. The familiar boxes of big-brand lagers were squashed together down one end, while a motley crew of colourful single bottles was taking up metres of shelf space. There were at least a hundred different beers, some from the UK, USA and Belgium but most made here in New Zealand. How long had they been here? I wondered. What did they taste like? What the hell was an IPA?

At the time I had been planning to start an offal blog as a way to practise writing, and had even registered the domain name Offallygood.com (now free, in case you want to use it). I wasnt sure of the exact angle I would take, only that it would feature recipes and a lot of bad puns. But standing in the beer aisle in front of all these mysterious bottles, I realised I had a more compelling and lets face it, more appealing subject in front of me. There and then I made a decision. An offally good one, looking back.

The premise was simple: I would drink and write about a different beer every single day for a year. That was it. The entire plan was formulated between the beer aisle and the deli, which is another way of saying it was not particularly well thought out.

For the next 365 days I consumed beer, and it in turn consumed me. When I started the blog I thought it wouldnt be a big deal, that I could slot it into my life without too much disruption. Ha! I guess thats what people think about babies before they have them. What I hadnt factored in is that I would turn into a raging beer nerd, and being a beer nerd is hard work. There was the blog to look after, sure, but on top of that there were weekly beer launches to attend, breweries to visit, politics and industry scandals to tweet about. Beer was no longer just a beverage, it had become a lifestyle.

For friends and family, my new lifestyle was a pain in the arse. If I met someone for a drink we had to find a place that had a beer I hadnt blogged about, then Id spend the first half hour taking photographs and notes. This meant conversations would go something like this:

Friend: Did you hear Jane is having a baby?

Me: A baby wow. Hey, can you smell aniseed in this?

Friend: Uh.... maybe. So anyway, apparently shes not sure who the father is

Me: Oh WOW.

Friend: Crazy right?

Me: No, I mean I think its got fennel in it!

I managed to weed out a lot of my less committed friends that year.

To be honest, I never truly believed when I started Beer for a Year that it would last the full 365 days. I had good intentions, but I knew how many other projects Id started with gusto only to abandon two weeks later. Weaving, jogging, gardening, vegetarianism you name it, Ive hit it and quit it.

But something happened that made Beer for a Year harder to give up on: to my amazement, some people other than my parents actually read the blog. It didnt really make me famous, or even internet famous like the cat that squeezes into the tiny boxes, but I gathered enough of an audience that giving up would have been embarrassing. Some nice readers even sent me special beers theyd picked up overseas, and bottles of their home brew wrapped up like newborn babies. Ordinarily I wouldnt drink something sent by a stranger on the internet, but they all had such adorable homemade labels, how could I not?