Good hop choices, but the beer tasted worty and unfinished. Distinct flavor of grain hulls and tannins that the citrusy hops couldn’t mask. This would probably be fine to drink with strongly-flavored food. 2/5 stars.
For those of you who have become regular readers, thank you for your patience with me as the posts have become more sporadic recently. This trend will likely continue. I’ll explain why, since the name of this beer makes a nice segue into the reason this blog exists.
Intentional. Intention. What was my intention for starting this blog? If you check the homepage you’ll be able to read the goal of the blog, to review a beer every day of 2022. Was that a realistic goal, considering that I work full-time and have two young children? Possibly, although it would require sacrifices related to either sleep, family time, or personal wellbeing. Giving a higher priority to all three of those has meant less time for writing lately. But, the goal only states the actions I intended to take, not why.
My why for this blog is twofold. One is that I wanted a creative outlet for writing. I spent a lot of time writing in school, and I was decently good at it. More importantly, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed nearly all of the writing that I got to do, most of the time regardless of assignment. Since college, the opportunities to write have been fewer, and usually involving less creativity. Almost all of the writing I do now for work is brief emails and intermittent presentations (where I have to speak the carefully crafted words). And, as an extra project, I get to do short engagement posts for my team. Like, Twitter short. Because everyone on my team is busy, and conciseness is prized far more highly than creativity. So, fun but not fulfilling. That’s where this blog comes in, because I can write as much as I want about whatever I want. And, at the end of the day, it’s just for me (although I’m happy that you’re reading it too!).
The second why for this blog is professional development. I am writing about beer because I want to practice writing about beer and spend time reading about beer to develop a voice and brand for myself in the beer industry. That’s right, you’re all my guinea pigs for when I make a career move. It feels weird to say it to an audience of… however many people read this post (I think I’m averaging five or six?), but here it is: I am making plans to not only shift careers into a different industry, but also going from being an employee to an employer. It’s scary but exciting whenever I think about it. I’m fairly risk adverse, so it takes a lot of motivation for me to think about changing employers (from one major company to another) much less leaving the safety net of guaranteed wages and benefits for figuring it all out myself. But, I believe that it’s something I am called to do and I believe that I have something to offer. I believe it with a conviction that overrides my hesitations. And so, I focus my intention on that.
Which bring me back to my intention and what that has to do with the blog. I set an aspirational goal for the blog (review a different beer every day for 365 days) knowing that I won’t achieve it without making sacrifices. I’ve also set a related aspirational career goal (make an entrepreneurial move into the beer industry). One is a test case for the other. By setting a high bar for myself, I can find what things I am and am not willing to sacrifice. Obviously there is a difference in scope in both the goals and the sacrifices needed to achieve them, but the test stands nonetheless. If I’m willing to skip a night of writing in order to spend time with my family, that also tells me that I need to design my career change around making time for family. If I’m willing to crank out two or three posts in a night so I can have a day off later in the week, I know I will need to (and can) push hard in my work to have time off later too. If I’m willing to abandon the blog entirely because the cost isn’t worth the benefit, then I need to make sure to plan those tolerances into creating my business too.
Thank you for your readership! I hope to have many more blog posts to share with you this year. But, if they suddenly stop you’ll now know why.
If you’re enjoying the blog, please consider supporting my work on Patreon. Egészségedre!
A Beer a Day 