C'est Non Un Blog

In addition to my regular posting I’d like to do something a little different. I’d like to write about beer.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on beer by any means, but I’ve recently come to the realization that it’s really hard for me to remember what it is I do and don’t like to drink, and it would be a huge benefit to me (and my memory) if I recorded my thoughts for future trips to the store. And hey, as long as I’m writing all of this down, why not share it with you?

Before I do that though, I’d like to share my personal drinking history. I actually never had a drink until college, and once I started drinking, at that point the only real purpose to drink was to get drunk. If I did drink I usually drank a lot, and it definitely was never the good stuff that we were drinking. After college I never really drank all that much because to do so meant driving at least twenty minutes away from home and I never really thought drunk driving was a good idea.

It wasn’t until I moved to Seattle that I really started taking an interest in beer, incidentally as a way to cope with the stress of work. When grocery shopping I started picking up a case of beer here and there and I’d go home and drink a beer or two after work to relax.

Well, at some point I actually started to like drinking a beer after work–you know, beyond its therapeutic qualities–but it was also at that point that realized I didn’t really know what it was that I liked and disliked. I’d buy a different case of beer every time I went shopping, but after a while I realized that I didn’t really like that one brand I had a month ago as much as I thought I did. I came to the realization that I wanted to learn more about beer and keep some records of what I did and didn’t like to really benefit my beer shopping.

As it happens, around the same time a new beer store opened up right down the street from me called The Beer Junction, and aside from having a huge selection, they also do weekly beer tastings. Here was a great place for me to broaden my knowledge about beer, become familiar with my local Northwest breweries, and be able to try something new every week.

These reviews will be pretty simple, focusing on my basic responses to what the beer looks, smells and tastes like, and ultimately how drinkable I find it to be. Really just my knee jerk, gut responses. Nothing special, but if you’re a beer drinker like me, I hope you maybe might discover something you’ve never heard of before. Since I’ll be looking at a lot of local West Coast breweries, there’s a good chance of that being true.