There's More To Life Than Great Beer. (Right?)

The last time I posted something here was in the late 17th century, during the latter days of the reign of King Charles II.

Or at least that's how it feels... and lately I've started to wonder why.

Having enthusiastically churned out around 160 reviews of beers from across the world, why would I suddenly lose the will?

It's not as though I've stopped getting excited about beer. After all, it's arguable that things have never been so exciting in the ever-widening world of brewing - as my three most recent acquisitions (pictured above) demonstrate with mouth-watering panache.

And it's not as though I've grown tired of writing either. During this period of blog silence I've been tinkering away with screenplays, revisiting old novel manuscripts (pretty decent one of them is, too) as well as knocking out the odd beer descriptor for any breweries which ask me to do so.

So what's my problem?

Well, after a lot of thought, I suspect I may have found the answer...

I think there may be more to life than beer.

I won't blame you for reading that last sentence three or four times, I know it's hard to compute.

But I have reason to believe it must be true because very often, when I sit down to extrapolate my views on yet another golden beer from the South East of England, I find I'm actually suppressing a more urgent need to talk about something else entirely. This suppressed 'something' comes in many forms, depending on what's going on in the world, it really could be anything, even something which - just imagine - hasn't the merest connection with beer at all.

So, having had this realisation - I've decided to shake things up and make some changes to this site. I'm going to break free from the shackles of my own design concept and use this quiet corner of the Webosphere to bleat on about whatever the heck happens to be on my mind. Who knows, maybe that other side of my life - that which involves prancing around in front of film cameras - might find a voice here. It seems that my rather odd profession can sometimes be of mild interest to many of you humanoids, so maybe it wouldn't hurt to share some of my 'on-set' experiences.

Maybe something will make me laugh or get me raging and I'll feel sufficiently compelled to share it. I don't really know how this will go, to be honest.

Beer will continue to feature, that's a given. Some beers are just too good to ignore. As things stand, the hyper intensity of creative energy, the abundant raw talent, and the sheer hard graft going on within the brewing industry will guarantee that I continue to get vocal from time to time.

But the unfortunate flipside of these unprecedented levels of brewing endeavour is that there is now way too much beer out there, and a lot of it simply doesn't inspire. So from now on only the brews that genuinely raise my spirits will be given air time here. Expect to find brews from Mikkeller, Avery, Evil Twin, Magic Rock, Kernel, Thornbridge, BrewDog, Russian River, Marble, Angel City, Cigar City, Beavertown, Sly Fox, Bear Republic and plenty more firms that fit comfortably onto this "kind" of list.

(You know what "kind" I'm talking about. Some like to call it "Craft Beer". Others then demand a more detailed explanation of what "craft" means. Then someone fetches a shotgun because they're so sick and tired of all this aimless, soul-destroying infighting.)

Anyway, there you have it. It's official. The Bottled Beer Year is back in action, replete with fancy new bells and whistles, and henceforth it will be - rather like life itself - about much more than pleasant tasting liquid.

I hope you'll stay tuned, and maybe you'll even enjoy it.

In the meantime, I'm going back on set.


(N.B. - The beers pictured are 'Gamma Ray' American Pale Ale from Beavertown, '113 IPA' India Pale Ale from Sly Fox and 'I Beat You' Imperial IPA from Mikkeller.  Each can now be found on the High Score Chart.)