I Wish I Hadn’t…Or do I?

I have always been interested in decent beers, always checking the beer isle at supermarkets for something a bit different but it wasn’t until I bought Michael Jackson’s ‘Great Beer Guide: 500 Classic Brews’ that it started to become somewhat of an obsession.

After flicking through the pages of this great book I decided it would be a good idea to tick off the beers that I’d already had. Now, in hindsight this was not the cleverest thing to do, given my predisposition to slightly obsessive behaviour, and I’m sure you can imagine where I went from there.

I currently stand at 146 out of 500, (although I have another five in my possession that I haven’t drunk yet) which is respectable given that I have only had the book for eight months. Thankfully though I have been able to get past the stage where the most important thing was the tick, and I have reached the even more dangerous stage where I am developing my own opinion about the beer. I still get an incredible buzz when I get my hand on something that the late, great MJ recommended but my beer shop hauls no longer consist of just these beers.

I’d like to think that I am not the only one who has suffered from the obsession of the tick.

So, what are the benefits of this obsession?

1. If you don’t have a vast knowledge of beer, it is a good place to start, as it can introduce you to a great many styles you probably didn’t know existed, and also some of the best breweries.
2. When you stumble across a beer from the book in an unexpected place, it’s beyond exciting. This does happen quite a lot with me, as I have read through it so many time that I know almost every bloody beer in there!
3. You get to know the best places to buy good beer as well as rare beer.

And, what are the drawbacks?

1. You can overlook good beer just because it doesn’t earn you a tick.
2. Discontinued beers. You’ll find that some of the beers are impossible to get your hands on because they are no longer brewed. This is infuriating, and every time you find one it makes the whole ticking enterprise more and more futile. A good example of this is the Imperial Russian Stout brewed by Courage. Also, Pitfield’s 1850 Shoreditch Porter. Oh, and not forgetting Okocim Porter (no longer brewed but I’m reliably informed that there are still bottles floating around in America). In fact there should be a law that prohibits breweries from discontinuing beers that are featured in books by respected beer writers, as it’s cruel to flaunt these mega beers in our faces saying how great they are and then taking them away again. Anyway, you get the idea.
3. You may annoy your girlfriend and her family by insisting on driving to the Beacon Hotel in Dudley after a family funeral, just so you can try Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby. Well, we were in Birmingham anyway. Luckily I have an understanding girlfriend.

Probably not an exhaustive list of pros and cons, so feel free to add more. Anyway, I seem to have gone off track a bit with the overall flow of this entry. The point I wanted to make was that the book turned me into a genuine beer lover, and for that I thank you Michael Jackson.