Last week I had my 3,000th unique beer. It was an 8% Double IPA, appropriately named ‘Mixtape’ from the Full Circle Brew Co, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I rated it a 4 of out 5 on Untappd, an app for beer enthusiasts which I coincidentally (ok, deliberately) joined 9 years ago that same day.
In truth, I’ve definitely tried more than 3,000 beers. ‘Craft’ had already piqued my curiosity before downloading the app in August 2016.
I hadn’t actually been drinking beer all that long though. I didn’t start drinking at all (save for a sip of an alcopop in the 90s) until I was around 18 and a half (mid 2006) on a week away with some friends I’d determined weren’t total idiots and fun to drink with, rather than on a path to being the cast of the next season of Skins.
Initially I drank vodka (Smirnoff Ice is so tasty) before moving onto a drink I based half my personality on for a few years, Southern Comfort, with cola like the vodka before it. My mixer of choice was always a point of contention, most preferring to pair SoCo with lemonade. The first time I actually tried it (at a birthday party of someone who probably did veer closer to Skins but now soundtracks TV shows) was with Dr Pepper. I’m not sure I ever did this again, settling on cola (fuck the haters).
I avoided beer at all most costs for about 5 years. Then, at some point around 2012, while supposedly saving for a mortgage deposit, I realised how much more affordable a supermarket crate of beers worked out compared to my trademark drink or the occasional alternatives (wine, gin tequila, Jägermeister, cocktails..). The beer flavoured water I began drinking, Budweiser, was fine for my social occasions of the time, which were becoming far more tame than the earlier years that were my initial latecomer’s foray into drinking.
I was still drinking my preferred drink(s) as well, but having weened myself onto beer I was in a good position for the so-called craft revolution when it happened. Attending a local beer festival in 2014 revealed there was a world outside of the big name lagers, but the warm cask ales of this period weren’t particularly exciting. My colleague, Dan was a few steps ahead on the craft front, and on work trips to London would dive into small bottleshops picking up obscuring looking brews to take home. On one visit I played it safe and tried a Camden Lager.
I liked it. I also liked the bottles of St Austell’s Tribute I drank at my friend’s wedding, the Brewdog Punk IPA at another friend’s engagement party. My tastebuds weren’t sure what to make of my first can of Beavertown’s Neck Oil that I had at a gig in November 2015, but this probably was the most akin to the thousands of beers I’d be drinking across the next decade (full disclaimer, as of 2022, Beavertown is now fully owned by Heineken, it’s why you see it everywhere now).
Content that I was set on a journey toward better beer, my colleague co-ordinated my leaving gift in 2016 to be two big boxes of bottles and cans that I made my way through during that summer leading up to 28th August, my first Untappd check in: Vital IPA by Victory Brewing Company at the Brewhouse & Kitchen in Poole.
To cast even less validity on the 3,000 total number, I’d already had a ‘paddle’ of three thirds earlier in the night. Each of these were the Brewhouse & Kitchen’s own beers, brewed on site. My new colleague, Ed (also a fan of good beer, conveniently) and I joked about how the default review of a beer you weren’t blown away by was always just “inoffensive”. In talking about reviewing beers Ed told me about Untappd, which he’d joined in the January of that year.
Each ‘check in’ on the app allows you to the record the beer, your location, the location you bought it (if different), the serving style (draft, bottle, can, etc..) flavour profile (I’ve never done this), the friends you’re with (if they have the app) and a score out of five (broken down by .25 increments), plus any comments you might have about the beer, “inoffensive” or otherwise. Some check ins will award you ‘badges’ based on a variety of factors such as the number of a particular style you’ve tried or connected to events. I’ve not paid a lot of attention to these, but I have collected 2,441 to date.
For me, the gamified nature of Untappd has centred on two things since 2016; continuing to try unique beers and visit new locations. Although I enjoy a beer at home paired with a TV show or film of an evening, my preference will always be drinking at breweries, bars and bottleshops. Not counting run-of-the-mill places, I’ve visited over 370 to date.
Realising that these trips were half the fun of drinking beer, in early 2017 I began documenting the venues, grouped geographically. You can find the full ‘Beer Tours’ archive here.
t’s not lost on me, that of all the activities my collecting driven mind is drawn to, drinking beer presents the biggest risk. Most of my other collections also require some financial discipline, I’m not sure any others present a threat to my health though. In this case, it really helps that I don’t have too much of a completist mind set, not that it’s really possible to be here, but I can walk away without feeling a need to drink every beer available at each location, or try every new release from a particular brewery. Each beer or visit is a valued experience and Untapped provides a virtual memento.
Other than a temporary warm feeling inside (and sometimes outside) I have little more to show for the money spent. As we begin to run out of display and storage space, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to favour the experiential for a change? Of course, my collector mindset has wandered throughout these spaces looking for the tangible takeaways. I have a number of associated collections from these beer adventures, each a story for another time perhaps.
Often when I’ve quoted my number of unique beers, the response has been “are there really 3,000 different beers?”. There are, and you’d probably need to add a few more zeroes to come anywhere close to a total. Being realistic, with or without Untappd there’s no way of knowing what that figure is (bad/good news, completists). Then I usually signpost them to my friend Frank, who I joined for his 11,000th(!) unique beer recently.
While my safe space is the pale ale / IPA territory, I’ll occasionally venture toward the sours or multitude of lager styles. I haven’t even begun to explore the dark beer grounds of stouts and porters. This diagram spotted on my travels gives an idea of how diverse the range of beers to be tried are.
It should also be noted that part of the draw for me has parallels across my other collecting tendencies, the packaging. In my early days of drinking craft, I’d opt for a can rather than tap beer when out and about, just to have the piece of artwork sat on the table and to be able to appreciate that along with the beer. Eventually I learnt that I prefer a fresh beer whenever I can get it and unfortunately the other part of the experience was lost.
Of course I do get to appreciate these when drinking at home and I may have kept one or two particularly special ones over the years. For a long time I photographed each can. Eventually this became a little arduous and it would just annoy me if I ever forgot to capture one (perhaps I am a completist?) so I stopped after about 7 years. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the heart to delete that photo archive though.
In paragraph 4 I referred to the craft beer “revolution” (the market’s words, not mine). It’s probably true that there was a revolution of sorts. It’s certainly undeniable that Brewdog’s seemingly overnight success did kick the doors in for them and their contemporaries to shake up both mainstream lager and the real ale scene. I’m not sure it transformed either entirely, but these interesting, unique, or at the very least betterbeers sit alongside others in supermarkets and most pubs now.
Though many breweries and venues are closing, others are opening in tandem, sustained by enough of an audience to maintain a flatline 10 years on, with the occasional peak or dip (see Brewdog closing flagship bars) if not the same prospect of growth there might have been to begin with. Regardless of market confidence, I’m optimistic there’ll be at least another 1,000 beers for me to check in.
Ps. I have an unopened bottle of Southern Comfort that must be nearing ten years old that I don’t want – any takers? (Genuinely.)
Liam Toms 